---
title: The boy was frightened, and tried to say a prayer, but he could reme… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The boy was frightened, and tried to say a prayer, but he could remember nothing but the multiplication table. Who acts: fault. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Little Boy and a Little Girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Little Boy and a Little Girl, sentence 71

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The boy was frightened, and tried to say a prayer, but he could remember nothing but the multiplication table.

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**Who acts:** fault · **What happens:** frighten, try, say, remember · **To what, where:** boy, prayer, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Little Boy and a Little Girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fault), 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:pg27200:171:71
# text = The boy was frightened, and tried to say a prayer, but he could remember nothing but the multiplication table.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boy	boy	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	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	prayer	prayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	remember	remember	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
17	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	16	obj	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	multiplication	multiplication	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | the boy |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **try** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | a prayer |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent prayer=Topic |
| 4 | **remember** | could | fault | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent nothing=Theme |

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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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