---
title: There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke of the be… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke of the beloved of her youth, and of their betrothal in the wood. Who acts: tears, bunch. 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 153

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There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke of the beloved of her youth, and of their betrothal in the wood.

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**Who acts:** tears, bunch · **What happens:** be, speak, betroth · **To what, where:** wood · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (tears, bunch), 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:pg27200:13:153
# text = There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke of the beloved of her youth, and of their betrothal in the wood.
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	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	beloved	beloved	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	betrothal	betrothal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	_
26	in	in	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | tears in the eyes of the old maid |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | bunch |  |  |  |  | of the beloved of bunch's youth | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **betroth** |  | tears *= tear* |  |  | the wood |  |  | nom betrothal «communication transitive»: poss=agent in=place |

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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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