---
title: There were not always things to be packed or unpacked, nor paper bag… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There were not always things to be packed or unpacked, nor paper bags to be made, nor the scales to be polished. Who acts: things. 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/pg27200/128/43/)

<!-- 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/) / 43

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There were not always things to be packed or unpacked, nor paper bags to be made, nor the scales to be polished.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** things · **What happens:** be, pack, unpack, make, polish · **To what, where:** paper bags, scales

<!-- .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 (things), 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:pg27200:128:43
# text = There were not always things to be packed or unpacked, nor paper bags to be made, nor the scales to be polished.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	5	advmod	_	_
5	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	packed	pack	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	unpacked	unpack	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	14	cc	_	_
13	paper	paper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	bags	bag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
19	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	24	cc	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	aux:pass	_	_
24	polished	polish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | things |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pack** | to-infinitive · passive | things *not said here* | paper bags |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1-1 «NP V PP.destination» |
| 3 | **unpack** | participle | things *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **make** | to-infinitive · passive | things *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP» |
| 5 | **polish** | to-infinitive · passive |  | the scales |  |  |  |  | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: subject=Destination |

<!-- .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 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/42/)
- next →: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/44/)
- ↑ back to [The Old Bachelor's Nightcap](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/128/)