---
title: The male and female servants stood outside, peeping through the chin… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The male and female servants stood outside, peeping through the chinks, although a real policeman was inside, threatening them with a stick. Who acts: male, real policeman. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fourth Evening, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Fourth Evening, sentence 9

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The male and female servants stood outside, peeping through the chinks, although a real policeman was inside, threatening them with a stick.

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**Who acts:** male, real policeman · **What happens:** stand, peep, be, threaten · **To what, where:** male

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fourth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (male, real policeman), 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:pg27200:95:9
# text = The male and female servants stood outside, peeping through the chinks, although a real policeman was inside, threatening them with a stick.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	male	male	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
4	female	female	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	servants	servant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
6	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	outside	outside	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	peeping	peep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	advcl	_	_
10	through	through	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	chinks	chink	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	although	although	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	policeman	policeman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	inside	inside	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	threatening	threaten	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | the male and female servants |  |  |  |  | outside *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **peep** | gerund | the male and female servants *not said here* |  |  |  |  | through the chinks | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent through chink=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | a real policeman |  |  |  |  | inside *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **threaten** | gerund | the male and female servants *not said here* | male |  |  |  | with a stick | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus they=Experiencer |

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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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