---
title: An old friend had just come to visit her, and they talked, not about… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: An old friend had just come to visit her, and they talked, not about the bottle neck, but of the myrtle in the window. Who acts: old friend, friend. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bottle Neck, sentence 147

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An old friend had just come to visit her, and they talked, not about the bottle neck, but of the myrtle in the window.

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**Who acts:** old friend, friend · **What happens:** come, visit, talk · **To what, where:** murmur, bottle neck

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old friend, friend), 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:pg27200:13:147
# text = An old friend had just come to visit her, and they talked, not about the bottle neck, but of the myrtle in the window.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	just	just	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	visit	visit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
16	about	about	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	myrtle	myrtle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | a old friend |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **visit** | to-infinitive | a old friend *not said here* | murmur |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **talk** | past | friend | the bottle neck |  |  |  | of the myrtle in the window | vn compel-59.1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent neck=Patient |

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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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