---
title: I did so with my flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they we… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I did so with my flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they were growing. Who acts: I, flowers. 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 70

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I did so with my flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they were growing.

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**Who acts:** I, flowers · **What happens:** do, want, see, grow

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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 (I, flowers), 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:pg27200:128:70
# text = I did so with my flowers, but only twice; I wanted to see if they were growing.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | I |  |  |  |  | with my flowers | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **want** | past | I |  |  |  |  | twice *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **see** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **grow** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · progressive | flowers *= flower* |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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