---
title: Sometimes, when they went at night to spread their nets, they would… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Sometimes, when they went at night to spread their nets, they would hear her sing, and say, "Oh, is not that beautiful?" Who acts: trees, that. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Nightingale, sentence 9

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Sometimes, when they went at night to spread their nets, they would hear her sing, and say, "Oh, is not that beautiful?"

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**Who acts:** trees, that · **What happens:** go, spread, hear, say, not be · **To what, where:** nets, sing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Nightingale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (trees, that), 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:pg27200:125:9
# text = Sometimes, when they went at night to spread their nets, they would hear her sing, and say, "Oh, is not that beautiful?"
1	Sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	spread	spread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	nets	net	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
16	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	sing	sing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	28	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
25	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
26	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
27	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	28	nsubj	_	_
28	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | trees *= tree* |  |  |  | night |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **spread** | to-infinitive | trees *= tree* *not said here* | trees's nets |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location net=Theme |
| 3 | **hear** | would | trees *= tree* | nightingale's sing |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sing=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: ask* | infinitive | trees *= tree* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | that |  |  |  |  | beautiful *property* | 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:** «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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