---
title: To write poems, he knew, only consists in being able to invent somet… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: To write poems, he knew, only consists in being able to invent something; but he could not invent anything. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What One Can Invent, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What One Can Invent, sentence 3

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To write poems, he knew, only consists in being able to invent something; but he could not invent anything.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** write, know, consist, be, invent, not invent · **To what, where:** poems, something, anything · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What One Can Invent. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg27200:206:3
# text = To write poems, he knew, only consists in being able to invent something; but he could not invent anything.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	write	write	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	poems	poem	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	only	only	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	consists	consist	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
12	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	ccomp	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	invent	invent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	invent	invent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
22	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | to-infinitive |  | poems |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent poem=Theme |
| 2 | **know** | past | man | poems *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **consist** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **invent** | to-infinitive |  | something |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Result |
| 6 | **not** **invent** | could | man | anything |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Result |

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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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