---
title: They were a very worthy old couple, I can remember them well in the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They were a very worthy old couple, I can remember them well in the days of my boyhood. Who acts: people, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Grave-stone, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Grave-stone, sentence 14

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They were a very worthy old couple, I can remember them well in the days of my boyhood.

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**Who acts:** people, I · **What happens:** be, remember · **To what, where:** worthy old couple, people

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Grave-stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, I), 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:pg27200:130:14
# text = They were a very worthy old couple, I can remember them well in the days of my boyhood.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	worthy	worthy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	boyhood	boyhood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | people | a worthy old couple |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **remember** | can | I | people |  |  | day | well *property* | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent they=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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