---
title: They could fly a little; by practice they learned to improve, and at… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They could fly a little; by practice they learned to improve, and at last they agreed upon a sign by which to recognise each other if they should meet in the world later on. Who acts: children. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, with 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, sentence 102

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They could fly a little; by practice they learned to improve, and at last they agreed upon a sign by which to recognise each other if they should meet in the world later on.

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** fly, learn, improve, agree, recognise, meet · **To what, where:** little, last, each, world

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:7439`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:124:102
# text = They could fly a little; by practice they learned to improve, and at last they agreed upon a sign by which to recognise each other if they should meet in the world later on.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	practice	practice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	learned	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	improve	improve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	obl	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	agreed	agree	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
19	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	by	by	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	25	obl	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	recognise	recognise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl:relcl	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	25	obj	_	_
27	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	fixed	_	_
28	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
29	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
30	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
31	meet	meet	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	advcl	_	_
32	in	in	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	_
35	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	36	advmod	_	_
36	on	on	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | could | children *= child* | a little |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **learn** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  | by practice | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **improve** | to-infinitive | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past | children *= child* |  |  | last |  | upon a sign | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **recognise** | to-infinitive | children *= child* *not said here* | each |  |  |  | by a sign | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer each=Stimulus |
| 6 | **meet** *a condition, not said to happen* | should | children *= child* |  |  | the world |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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