---
title: They laughed, and they wept, and very soon understood how wickedly t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They laughed, and they wept, and very soon understood how wickedly their mother had acted to them all. " Who acts: princes. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, sentence 92

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They laughed, and they wept, and very soon understood how wickedly their mother had acted to them all. "

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**Who acts:** princes · **What happens:** laugh, weep, understand, act · **To what, where:** mother, princes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, 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 (princes), 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:pg27200:208:92
# text = They laughed, and they wept, and very soon understood how wickedly their mother had acted to them all. "
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
11	understood	understand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
13	wickedly	wickedly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	acted	act	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	ccomp	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	19	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | princes *= prince* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **weep** | past | princes *= prince* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **understand** | past | princes *= prince* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **act** | past · perfect · passive |  | princes's mother | princes *= prince* |  |  | wickedly *property* | vn act-114-1-1 «NP V PP.predicate»: subject=Eventuality |

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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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