---
title: There would have been a fine noise if the General and his wife had s… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There would have been a fine noise if the General and his wife had seen the feast, but they did not see it. Who acts: fine noise, General, cheese. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/57/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Porter's Son, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/) / 57

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1, sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There would have been a fine noise if the General and his wife had seen the feast, but they did not see it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fine noise, General, cheese · **What happens:** be, see, not see · **To what, where:** feast

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fine noise, General, cheese), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:146:57
# text = There would have been a fine noise if the General and his wife had seen the feast, but they did not see it.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux	_	_
4	been	be	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	General	General	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	acl:relcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	feast	feast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | would · perfect | a fine noise |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | the General and General's wife | the feast |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer feast=Stimulus |
| 3 | **not** **see** | past · do-support | cheese | feast |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/56/)
- next →: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/58/)
- ↑ back to [The Porter's Son, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/)