---
title: I only wished I had them all in my box again, and that I had never b… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I only wished I had them all in my box again, and that I had never been their director. Who acts: 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 53

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I only wished I had them all in my box again, and that I had never been their director.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** wish, have, not be · **To what, where:** beings, box, director · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg27200:152:53
# text = I only wished I had them all in my box again, and that I had never been their director.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	nmod:unmarked	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	again	again	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
17	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
18	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	20	cop	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	director	director	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | I | beings *= being* |  | my box | again |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **is a** | past · perfect | I | beings's director |  |  |  |  | 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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