---
title: The princess touched it and nearly began to cry. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The princess touched it and nearly began to cry. Who acts: princess. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Swineherd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Swineherd, sentence 14

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The princess touched it and nearly began to cry.

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**Who acts:** princess · **What happens:** touch, begin, cry · **To what, where:** tree

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (princess), 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:pg27200:188:14
# text = The princess touched it and nearly began to cry.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | the princess | tree |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the princess *not said here* |  |  |  |  | nearly *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | the princess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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