---
title: And the old woman curtsied as well as she could; she thought it must… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: And the old woman curtsied as well as she could; she thought it must be St. Peter himself who spoke to her. " Who acts: old woman, admission, Peter. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/161/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Snowdrop, sentence 161

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And the old woman curtsied as well as she could; she thought it must be St. Peter himself who spoke to her. "

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**Who acts:** old woman, admission, Peter · **What happens:** curtsy, think, be, speak · **To what, where:** old woman, Peter, woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman, admission, Peter), 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:pg27200:177:161
# text = And the old woman curtsied as well as she could; she thought it must be St. Peter himself who spoke to her. "
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
5	curtsied	curtsy	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
6	as	as	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
15	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
17	St.	St.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nmod:desc	_	_
18	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	ccomp	_	_
19	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	18	nmod	_	_
20	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
21	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **curtsy** | participle |  | the old woman *not said here* |  |  |  | well *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | must | admission | Peter |  |  |  | St. *nmod:desc*; widow *nmod* | tree rules |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Peter |  | woman |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to she=Co-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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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