---
title: Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth, and were soon both… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth, and were soon both very busy and eager about it. Who acts: children, both. 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 67

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Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth, and were soon both very busy and eager about it.

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**Who acts:** children, both · **What happens:** get, fill, be · **To what, where:** flower pot, pot

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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 (children, both), 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:pg27200:128:67
# text = Then they got a flower-pot, filled it with earth, and were soon both very busy and eager about it.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	flower	flower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	filled	fill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
16	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	19	advmod	_	_
17	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	19	nsubj	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	eager	eager	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
22	about	about	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | children *= child* | a flower pot |  |  | then |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer pot=Stimulus |
| 2 | **fill** | past | children *= child* *not said here* | pot |  |  |  | with earth | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent it=Patient with earth=Instrument |
| 3 | **is** | past | both |  |  |  |  | busy, soon *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | both *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about earth | 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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