---
title: I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou sa… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou sang'st them!” Who acts: I, thou. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of a Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Story of a Mother, sentence 18

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I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou sang'st them!”

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**Who acts:** I, thou · **What happens:** hear, be, see, sang'st · **To what, where:** songs, Night, tears

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of a Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, thou), 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:pg1597:21:18
# text = I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou sang'st them!”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	before	before	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	Night	Night	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
15	whilst	whilst	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	17	nsubj	_	_
17	sang'st	sang'st	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | present · perfect | I | songs *= song* |  |  |  | before *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | present | I | Night |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **see** | past | I | thy tears |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer tear=Stimulus |
| 4 | **sang'st** | past | thou | songs *= song* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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