---
title: For years she had not been able to weep, but had only bitten her lip… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: For years she had not been able to weep, but had only bitten her lips till the blood started. Who acts: mother, blood. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors, sentence 56

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For years she had not been able to weep, but had only bitten her lips till the blood started.

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**Who acts:** mother, blood · **What happens:** not be, weep, bite, start · **To what, where:** lips

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, blood), 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:pg27200:12:56
# text = For years she had not been able to weep, but had only bitten her lips till the blood started.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
7	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	weep	weep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	bitten	bite	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	parataxis	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past · perfect | mother |  |  |  | year | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **weep** | to-infinitive | mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **bite** | past · perfect |  | mother's lips |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lip=Patient |
| 4 | **start** | past | the blood |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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