---
title: That was a sinful thought, and he offered a prayer to drive it away. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: That was a sinful thought, and he offered a prayer to drive it away. Who acts: That, castle. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/161/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Old Bachelor's Nightcap](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/) / 161

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, sentence 161

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
That was a sinful thought, and he offered a prayer to drive it away.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** That, castle · **What happens:** be, offer, drive away · **To what, where:** sinful thought, prayer

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (That, castle), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:128:161
# text = That was a sinful thought, and he offered a prayer to drive it away.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	sinful	sinful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	offered	offer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	prayer	prayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	drive	drive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	away	away	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | That | a sinful thought |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **offer** | past | castle | a prayer |  |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent prayer=Theme |
| 3 | **drive away** | to-infinitive | castle *not said here* | prayer |  |  |  | away *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme it=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 160](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/160/)
- next →: [sentence 162](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/162/)
- ↑ back to [The Old Bachelor's Nightcap](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/)