---
title: "I should like very much to see her," thought the soldier; but he co… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "I should like very much to see her," thought the soldier; but he could not obtain permission to do so. Who acts: soldier. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Tinder-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Tinder-box, sentence 53

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"I should like very much to see her," thought the soldier; but he could not obtain permission to do so.

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**Who acts:** soldier · **What happens:** like, see, think, not obtain, do · **To what, where:** princess, permission · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Tinder-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier), 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:pg27200:193:53
# text = "I should like very much to see her," thought the soldier; but he could not obtain permission to do so.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	much	much	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	_
12	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	obtain	obtain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
21	permission	permission	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	_
24	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** *in a quote* | should | the soldier *= soldier* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **see** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the soldier *= soldier* *not said here* | princess |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer she=Stimulus |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the soldier |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **obtain** | could | soldier | permission |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **do** | to-infinitive | soldier *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=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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