---
title: He stood so high that they were afraid he would not accept a verbal… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He stood so high that they were afraid he would not accept a verbal message. Who acts: slit, things. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Money-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Money-box, sentence 15

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He stood so high that they were afraid he would not accept a verbal message.

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**Who acts:** slit, things · **What happens:** stand, be, not accept · **To what, where:** verbal message

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Money-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (slit, things), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:90:15
# text = He stood so high that they were afraid he would not accept a verbal message.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advcl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	accept	accept	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	verbal	verbal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	message	message	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | slit |  |  |  |  | high *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | things *= thing* |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **accept** | would | slit | a verbal message |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent message=Theme |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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