---
title: John could not refrain from telling him how gracious the princess ha… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: John could not refrain from telling him how gracious the princess had been, and how beautiful she looked. Who acts: John, princess. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, sentence 75

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John could not refrain from telling him how gracious the princess had been, and how beautiful she looked.

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**Who acts:** John, princess · **What happens:** not refrain, tell, be, look · **To what, where:** John · **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 (John, 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:pg27200:197:75
# text = John could not refrain from telling him how gracious the princess had been, and how beautiful she looked.
1	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	refrain	refrain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
6	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
9	gracious	gracious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
17	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **refrain** | could | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn refrain-69 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | gerund | John *not said here* |  | John |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | gracious *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **look** | past | princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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