---
title: My breath was taken away, my head whirled, and I was as miserable as… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: My breath was taken away, my head whirled, and I was as miserable as a man could be. Who acts: head, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Puppet-show Man, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Puppet-show Man, sentence 51

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My breath was taken away, my head whirled, and I was as miserable as a man could be.

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**Who acts:** head, I · **What happens:** take away, whirl, be · **To what, where:** breath

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Puppet-show Man. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (head, I), 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:pg27200:152:51
# text = My breath was taken away, my head whirled, and I was as miserable as a man could be.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	away	away	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	whirled	whirl	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	as	as	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take away** | past · passive |  | My breath |  |  |  | away *property* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **whirl** | past | my head |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | miserable *property* | 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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