---
title: But Gerda could not close her eyes at all; she knew not whether she… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But Gerda could not close her eyes at all; she knew not whether she was to live or die. Who acts: Gerda. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Robber-girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/174/42/)

<!-- 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/) / [Little Robber-girl](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/174/) / 42

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Robber-girl, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But Gerda could not close her eyes at all; she knew not whether she was to live or die.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Gerda · **What happens:** not close, not know, be, die · **To what, where:** eyes, all · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Robber-girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Gerda), 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:pg27200:174:42
# text = But Gerda could not close her eyes at all; she knew not whether she was to live or die.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	Gerda	Gerda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	close	close	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
14	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **close** | could | Gerda | Gerda's eyes |  | all |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past | Gerda |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | past | Gerda |  |  |  |  | live *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **die** | infinitive | Gerda *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

<!-- .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 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/174/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/174/43/)
- ↑ back to [Little Robber-girl](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/174/)