---
title: Our travellers had to sit all together on a little box at the back o… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Our travellers had to sit all together on a little box at the back of the waggon, but even this, they thought, was better than walking. Who acts: travellers, this. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2, with its dependency tree 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2, sentence 70

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Our travellers had to sit all together on a little box at the back of the waggon, but even this, they thought, was better than walking.

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**Who acts:** travellers, this · **What happens:** have, sit, think, be, walk · **To what, where:** this, little box · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (travellers, this), 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:pg27200:159:70
# text = Our travellers had to sit all together on a little box at the back of the waggon, but even this, they thought, was better than walking.
1	Our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	travellers	traveller	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	all	all	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	together	together	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	waggon	waggon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	even	even	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
27	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	24	ccomp	_	_
28	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
29	walking	walk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	27	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Our travellers | this |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | to-infinitive | this *not said here* |  |  | a little box at the back of the waggon |  | together *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on box=Location |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | travellers *= traveller* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **walk** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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