---
title: He had also a nightingale, which could sing as if every sweet melody… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He had also a nightingale, which could sing as if every sweet melody was in its throat. Who acts: father, nightingale, sweet melody. 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 7

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He had also a nightingale, which could sing as if every sweet melody was in its throat.

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**Who acts:** father, nightingale, sweet melody · **What happens:** have, sing, be · **To what, where:** nightingale, throat

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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 (father, nightingale, sweet melody), 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:pg27200:188:7
# text = He had also a nightingale, which could sing as if every sweet melody was in its throat.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	also	also	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	nightingale	nightingale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
12	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	14	det	_	_
13	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	melody	melody	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	throat	throat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | father | a nightingale |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nightingale=Patient |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | could | a nightingale |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | every sweet melody |  |  | melody's throat |  |  | tree rules |

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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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