---
title: Oh, I must contrive to get lost, thought I. And I trembled between t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Oh, I must contrive to get lost, thought I. And I trembled between the fingers of the people every time they tried to pass me off slyly as a coin of the country. Who acts: I, people. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Silver Shilling, with its dependency tr
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/167/30/)

<!-- 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 Silver Shilling](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/167/) / 30

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Silver Shilling, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Oh, I must contrive to get lost, thought I. And I trembled between the fingers of the people every time they tried to pass me off slyly as a coin of the country.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, people · **What happens:** contrive, lose, think, tremble, try, pass off · **To what, where:** fingers, time, me, country

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Silver Shilling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, people), 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:pg27200:167:30
# text = Oh, I must contrive to get lost, thought I. And I trembled between the fingers of the people every time they tried to pass me off slyly as a coin of the country.
1	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	contrive	contrive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	get	get	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	thought	think	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
11	I.	I.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	xcomp	_	_
12	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	trembled	tremble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
15	between	between	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	_
21	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	22	det	_	_
22	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
23	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
27	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	off	off	ADP	RP	_	26	compound:prt	_	_
29	slyly	slyly	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
30	as	as	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	coin	coin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **contrive** | must | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lose** | to-infinitive · passive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | participle | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **tremble** | past | I |  |  | the fingers of the people | time |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme between finger=Location |
| 5 | **try** | past | people | every time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **pass off** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | people *not said here* | me |  |  |  | as a coin of the country; slyly *property* | vn spend\_time-104 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent i=Duration as coin=Attribute |
| 7 | **coin** |  |  | the country |  |  |  |  | nom coin «possession transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/167/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/167/31/)
- ↑ back to [The Silver Shilling](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/167/)