---
title: But Hansel had not looked back at his kitten, but had always dropped… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But Hansel had not looked back at his kitten, but had always dropped one of the white pebbles out of his pocket on to the path. Who acts: Hansel. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 26

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But Hansel had not looked back at his kitten, but had always dropped one of the white pebbles out of his pocket on to the path.

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**Who acts:** Hansel · **What happens:** not look back, drop · **To what, where:** one

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hansel), 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:pg503:35:26
# text = But Hansel had not looked back at his kitten, but had always dropped one of the white pebbles out of his pocket on to the path.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	Hansel	Hansel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	looked	look	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	kitten	kitten	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	14	advmod	_	_
14	dropped	drop	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	parataxis	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	_
20	out	out	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	pocket	pocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
24	on	on	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	path	path	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **look back** | past · perfect | Hansel |  |  |  |  | at kitten's kitten | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at kitten=Theme |
| 2 | **drop** | past · perfect |  | one of the white pebbles out kitten's pocket on the path |  |  |  | always *property* | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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