---
title: That was a great thought; but, you see, a great thistle has a right… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: That was a great thought; but, you see, a great thistle has a right to a great thought. Who acts: That, you, great thistle. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Thistle's Experiences, 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/pg27200/189/42/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Thistle's Experiences](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/189/) / 42

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Thistle's Experiences, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
That was a great thought; but, you see, a great thistle has a right to a great thought.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** That, you, great thistle · **What happens:** be, see, have · **To what, where:** great thought, right

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Thistle's Experiences. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, you, great thistle), 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:pg27200:189:42
# text = That was a great thought; but, you see, a great thistle has a right to a great thought.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	thistle	thistle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	right	right	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | That | a great thought |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **have** | present | a great thistle | a right |  |  |  | to a great thought | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent right=Patient |

<!-- .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/pg27200/189/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/189/43/)
- ↑ back to [The Thistle's Experiences](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/189/)