---
title: The director had to give a very merry piece, that the public might n… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The director had to give a very merry piece, that the public might not too painfully miss the pretty Columbine and the agile Harlequin. Who acts: director. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fifteenth Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Fifteenth Evening, sentence 24

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The director had to give a very merry piece, that the public might not too painfully miss the pretty Columbine and the agile Harlequin.

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**Who acts:** director · **What happens:** have, give, miss · **To what, where:** merry piece, pretty Columbine

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Fifteenth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (director), 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:pg27200:106:24
# text = The director had to give a very merry piece, that the public might not too painfully miss the pretty Columbine and the agile Harlequin.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	director	director	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	merry	merry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	public	public	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
14	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	too	too	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	painfully	painfully	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	advcl	_	_
18	miss	miss	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	Columbine	Columbine	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	agile	agile	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	Harlequin	Harlequin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the director |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | to-infinitive | the director *not said here* | a merry piece |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent piece=Theme |
| 3 | **miss** | present | the director *not said here* | the pretty Columbine and the agile Harlequin |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer columbine=Stimulus |

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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:** «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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