---
title: Many of them were very aged; lonely old boys, with strange thoughts… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Many of them were very aged; lonely old boys, with strange thoughts and eccentric habits. Who acts: Many. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, sentence 11

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Many of them were very aged; lonely old boys, with strange thoughts and eccentric habits.

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**Who acts:** Many · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Many), 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:pg27200:128:11
# text = Many of them were very aged; lonely old boys, with strange thoughts and eccentric habits.
1	Many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nsubj	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	nmod	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	aged	aged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	lonely	lonely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	eccentric	eccentric	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	habits	habit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Many of clerks |  |  |  |  | lonely old boys and strange thoughts and eccentric habits *obl*; aged *property* | tree rules |

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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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