---
title: It's really a pleasure now and then to become a mere nothing, especi… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It's really a pleasure now and then to become a mere nothing, especially when a man is as highly placed as I am. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, First Visit, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, First Visit, sentence 18

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It's really a pleasure now and then to become a mere nothing, especially when a man is as highly placed as I am.

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**What happens:** be, become, place · **To what, where:** pleasure, man

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, First Visit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg27200:136:18
# text = It's really a pleasure now and then to become a mere nothing, especially when a man is as highly placed as I am.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	really	really	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	pleasure	pleasure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
15	especially	especially	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
20	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	highly	highly	ADV	RB	_	22	obl	_	_
22	placed	place	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl:relcl	_	_
23	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | a pleasure |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **become** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | then |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **place** | present · passive |  | a man |  |  |  | especially *property* | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: subject=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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