---
title: But his thoughts were far more ambitious, as the thoughts of a man o… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But his thoughts were far more ambitious, as the thoughts of a man often are. Who acts: thoughts, man. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1, sentence 28

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But his thoughts were far more ambitious, as the thoughts of a man often are.

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**Who acts:** thoughts, man · **What happens:** be, think · **To what, where:** man

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thoughts, man), 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:pg27200:202:28
# text = But his thoughts were far more ambitious, as the thoughts of a man often are.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	_
6	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	7	advmod	_	_
7	ambitious	ambitious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	often	often	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | man's thoughts |  |  |  |  | ambitious *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** |  | man |  |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |
| 3 | **think** |  |  | a man |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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