---
title: They left home early in May, and none of them returned till the firs… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They left home early in May, and none of them returned till the first of May in the following year, and then only three of them. Who acts: thoughts, none. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Soup From a Sausage Skewer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Soup From a Sausage Skewer, sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They left home early in May, and none of them returned till the first of May in the following year, and then only three of them.

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**Who acts:** thoughts, none · **What happens:** leave, return, follow · **To what, where:** three

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Soup From a Sausage Skewer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thoughts, none), 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:pg27200:178:24
# text = They left home early in May, and none of them returned till the first of May in the following year, and then only three of them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	home	home	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	May	May	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	12	nsubj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nmod	_	_
12	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	till	till	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	first	first	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	12	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	May	May	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	following	follow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	amod	_	_
21	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	26	advmod	_	_
25	only	only	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	obl	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | past | thoughts *= thought* |  |  |  | may | early, home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **return** | past | none | three of thoughts |  |  | till the first of May; year |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **follow** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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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