---
title: I didn't know any better then, and the flowers all died." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I didn't know any better then, and the flowers all died." 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 71

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I didn't know any better then, and the flowers all died."

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**Who acts:** I, flowers · **What happens:** not know, die

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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:pg27200:128:71
# text = I didn't know any better then, and the flowers all died."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	any	any	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
12	all	all	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **die** | past | the flowers |  |  |  | then | all *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

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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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