---
title: But I knew this lady many years ago, and she has been dead nearly ha… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But I knew this lady many years ago, and she has been dead nearly half a century." Who acts: I, much. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old House, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old House, sentence 52

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But I knew this lady many years ago, and she has been dead nearly half a century."

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**Who acts:** I, much · **What happens:** know, be · **To what, where:** lady, dead century

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old House. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, much), 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:pg27200:131:52
# text = But I knew this lady many years ago, and she has been dead nearly half a century."
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
12	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	cop	_	_
14	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
15	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	half	half	DET	PDT	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac|PronType=Ind	18	det:predet	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	century	century	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | I | this lady |  |  |  | ago *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer lady=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | present · perfect | much | half dead century |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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