---
title: She can there read how the old phoenix set fire to his own nest, and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She can there read how the old phoenix set fire to his own nest, and sat upon it while it was burning, like a Hindoo widow. Who acts: flogging, old phoenix, world. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, sentence 115

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She can there read how the old phoenix set fire to his own nest, and sat upon it while it was burning, like a Hindoo widow.

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**Who acts:** flogging, old phoenix, world · **What happens:** read, set, sit, burn · **To what, where:** fire, world

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Garden of Paradise. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flogging, old phoenix, world), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:8910`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:140:115
# text = She can there read how the old phoenix set fire to his own nest, and sat upon it while it was burning, like a Hindoo widow.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
4	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	phoenix	phoenix	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
10	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
18	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	like	like	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	Hindoo	Hindoo	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **read** | can | flogging |  |  | there |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **set** | past | the old phoenix | fire |  |  |  | to phoenix's own nest | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient fire=Result |
| 3 | **sit** | past | the old phoenix *not said here* |  |  | world |  | like a Hindoo widow | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent upon it=Location |
| 4 | **burn** | past · progressive | world |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: 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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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