---
title: Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his old wife under the blooming tree. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Elderbush, sentence 131

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Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his old wife under the blooming tree.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** pass, be, sit, bloom · **To what, where:** old man, blooming tree

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg1597:17:131
# text = Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his old wife under the blooming tree.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
9	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	under	under	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	blooming	bloom	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	23	amod	_	_
23	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | past |  |  |  |  | year | thus *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | boy | a old man |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sit** | past |  |  |  | the blooming tree |  | with boy's old wife | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent under tree=Location |
| 4 | **bloom** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_modes\_being-47.2 «NP V»: agent=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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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