---
title: Poor thing! he had no thoughts of marriage; all he wanted was permis… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Poor thing! he had no thoughts of marriage; all he wanted was permission to lie among the rushes, and drink some of the water on the moor. Who acts: Poor thing, cat. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, sentence 68

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Poor thing! he had no thoughts of marriage; all he wanted was permission to lie among the rushes, and drink some of the water on the moor.

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**Who acts:** Poor thing, cat · **What happens:** have, want, be, lie, drink, think · **To what, where:** thoughts, permission, rushes, some, moor, marriage

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Poor thing, cat), 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:pg27200:201:68
# text = Poor thing! he had no thoughts of marriage; all he wanted was permission to lie among the rushes, and drink some of the water on the moor.
1	Poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	7	det	_	_
7	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	marriage	marriage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	permission	permission	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	among	among	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	rushes	rush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
24	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	23	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	on	on	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	moor	moor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Poor thing | no thoughts of marriage |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thought=Patient |
| 2 | **want** | past | cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **is a** | past | Poor thing *not said here* | all permission |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **lie** | to-infinitive | Poor thing *not said here* |  |  | the rushes |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent among rush=Location |
| 5 | **drink** | infinitive | Poor thing *not said here* | some |  | the moor |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent some=Patient |
| 6 | **think** |  |  | marriage |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: of=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.

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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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