---
title: The old women who drank brandy would color it quite black before the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The old women who drank brandy would color it quite black before they drank it, to show how they mourned; and what more could they do? Who acts: old women, women. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, sentence 34

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The old women who drank brandy would color it quite black before they drank it, to show how they mourned; and what more could they do?

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**Who acts:** old women, women · **What happens:** drink, color, show, mourn, do · **To what, where:** brandy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old women, women), 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:pg27200:197:34
# text = The old women who drank brandy would color it quite black before they drank it, to show how they mourned; and what more could they do?
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	drank	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
6	brandy	brandy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	color	color	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	_
12	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	drank	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	show	show	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
19	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	advmod	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	mourned	mourn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
24	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	28	obj	_	_
25	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	24	amod	_	_
26	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
27	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drink** | past | the old women | brandy |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brandy=Patient |
| 2 | **color** | would | the old women | brandy |  |  |  | black *property* | vn coloring-24 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 3 | **drink** | past | women *= woman* | brandy |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 4 | **show** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **mourn** | past | women *= woman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 6 | **do** | could | women *= woman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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