---
title: They were playing at "going to bed," for the occasion seemed especia… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They were playing at "going to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this sport. Who acts: children, occasion. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Visit, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Third Visit, sentence 3

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They were playing at "going to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this sport.

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**Who acts:** children, occasion · **What happens:** play, go, seem · **To what, where:** bed

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Visit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children, occasion), 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:pg27200:138:3
# text = They were playing at "going to bed," for the occasion seemed especially favorable for this sport.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
11	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	occasion	occasion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
15	especially	especially	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	favorable	favorable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	sport	sport	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	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 | **play** | past · progressive | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | gerund | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  | bed |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bed=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **seem** | past | the occasion |  |  |  |  | favorable *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=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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