---
title: They believed it to be some new sorcery of their wicked step-mother. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They believed it to be some new sorcery of their wicked step-mother. Who acts: brothers. 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 70

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They believed it to be some new sorcery of their wicked step-mother.

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**Who acts:** brothers · **What happens:** believe, be · **To what, where:** nettle, new sorcery

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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 (brothers), 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:pg27200:209:70
# text = They believed it to be some new sorcery of their wicked step-mother.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	believed	believe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
7	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	sorcery	sorcery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	xcomp	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
11	wicked	wicked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
12	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **believe** | past | brothers *= brother* | nettle |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive | brothers *= brother* *not said here* | some new sorcery |  |  |  | of brothers's wicked step mother | tree rules |

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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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