---
title: And his mother laughed, put some Elder-flowers in the tea-pot, and p… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And his mother laughed, put some Elder-flowers in the tea-pot, and poured boiling water upon them. Who acts: mother. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/20/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Elderbush, sentence 20

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And his mother laughed, put some Elder-flowers in the tea-pot, and poured boiling water upon them.

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**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** laugh, put, pour, boil · **To what, where:** Elder flowers, tea pot, boiling water

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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 (mother), 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:pg1597:17:20
# text = And his mother laughed, put some Elder-flowers in the tea-pot, and poured boiling water upon them.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	_
8	Elder	Elder	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	tea	tea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	poured	pour	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
19	boiling	boil	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	amod	_	_
20	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | tap's mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **put** | infinitive | tap's mother *not said here* | some Elder flowers |  | the tea pot |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent flower=Theme in pot=Destination |
| 3 | **pour** | past |  | boiling water |  |  |  | upon flowers *= flower* | vn preparing-26.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient |
| 4 | **boil** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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:** «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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