---
title: The mothers carried their little children at their backs, the elder… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The mothers carried their little children at their backs, the elder ones tottered by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged at a cart that bore their scanty effects. Who acts: mothers, poor starved horse, cart. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fourteent
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Fourteenth Evening, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The mothers carried their little children at their backs, the elder ones tottered by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged at a cart that bore their scanty effects.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mothers, poor starved horse, cart · **What happens:** carry, totter, starve, tug, bear, effect · **To what, where:** little children, backs, elder ones, scanty effects

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fourteenth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mothers, poor starved horse, cart), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:105:6
# text = The mothers carried their little children at their backs, the elder ones tottered by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged at a cart that bore their scanty effects.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	mothers	mother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	carried	carry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	elder	elder	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	appos	_	_
14	tottered	totter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	sides	side	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
22	starved	starve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	amod	_	_
23	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	tugged	tug	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
25	at	at	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	cart	cart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
28	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	nsubj	_	_
29	bore	bear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	acl:relcl	_	_
30	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
31	scanty	scanty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	compound	_	_
32	effects	effect	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carry** | past | the mothers | mothers's little children |  | mothers's backs |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Theme |
| 2 | **totter** | participle |  | the elder ones *not said here* |  |  |  | by mothers's sides | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by side=Location |
| 3 | **starve** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **tug** | participle | a poor starved horse |  |  |  |  | at a cart | vn push-12-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent at cart=Theme |
| 5 | **bear** | past | a cart | mothers's scanty effects |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent effect=Patient |
| 6 | **effect** |  | mothers *= mother* |  |  |  |  |  | nom effect «phenomenon transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:** «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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