---
title: Her mouth was closed; a single word would cost the lives of her brot… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Her mouth was closed; a single word would cost the lives of her brothers. Who acts: single word. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, sentence 112

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Her mouth was closed; a single word would cost the lives of her brothers.

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**Who acts:** single word · **What happens:** close, cost · **To what, where:** mouth, lives

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, 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 (single word), 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:pg27200:209:112
# text = Her mouth was closed; a single word would cost the lives of her brothers.
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	closed	close	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	cost	cost	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **close** | past · passive |  | weight's mouth |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **cost** | would | a single word | the lives of weight's brothers |  |  |  |  | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme life=Value |

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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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