---
title: At last the travellers began to wish for wind, for a favourable bree… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: At last the travellers began to wish for wind, for a favourable breeze; but their wish was useless--not a breath of air stirred, or if it did arise it was contrary. Who acts: travellers, wish, breath. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hil
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1, sentence 51

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At last the travellers began to wish for wind, for a favourable breeze; but their wish was useless--not a breath of air stirred, or if it did arise it was contrary.

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**Who acts:** travellers, wish, breath · **What happens:** begin, wish, be, stir, arise · **To what, where:** last

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, 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 (travellers, wish, breath), 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:pg27200:10693`): 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:pg27200:158:51
# text = At last the travellers began to wish for wind, for a favourable breeze; but their wish was useless--not a breath of air stirred, or if it did arise it was contrary.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	travellers	traveller	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	wish	wish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	favourable	favourable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	breeze	breeze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	wish	wish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
21	--	--	PUNCT	:	_	27	punct	_	_
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
27	stirred	stir	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	parataxis	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
29	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
30	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	nsubj	_	_
32	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
33	arise	arise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	36	advcl	_	_
34	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	36	nsubj	_	_
35	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	cop	_	_
36	contrary	contrary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	conj	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | the travellers |  |  | last |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **wish** | to-infinitive | the travellers *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for wind and a favourable breeze | vn long-32.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Pivot for wind=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | travellers's wish |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **stir** | past | a breath of air |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **arise** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · do-support | breath |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **is** | past | breath |  |  |  |  | contrary *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **wish** |  | travellers *= traveller* |  |  |  |  |  | nom wish «feeling intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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