---
title: "Poor old bachelor, cut your wood, Such a nightcap was never seen; W… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Poor old bachelor, cut your wood, Such a nightcap was never seen; Who would think it was ever clean? Who acts: Poor old bachelor, wood. 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 15

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"Poor old bachelor, cut your wood, Such a nightcap was never seen; Who would think it was ever clean?

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**Who acts:** Poor old bachelor, wood · **What happens:** cut, not see, think, be · **To what, where:** wood, nightcap · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Poor old bachelor, wood), 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:pg27200:128:15
# text = "Poor old bachelor, cut your wood, Such a nightcap was never seen; Who would think it was ever clean?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	bachelor	bachelor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	Such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	12	det:predet	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	nightcap	nightcap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
14	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	23	advmod	_	_
23	clean	clean	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut** *in a quote* | infinitive | Poor old bachelor | your wood |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset wood=Product |
| 2 | **not** **see** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | such nightcap |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | would |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | past | wood |  |  |  | ever | clean *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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