---
title: Daa and his daughters could not help hearing it, so I blew about the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Daa and his daughters could not help hearing it, so I blew about their ears to drown the noise; what use was it that they should listen? Who acts: Daa, I, use. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of the Wind, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Story of the Wind, sentence 164

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Daa and his daughters could not help hearing it, so I blew about their ears to drown the noise; what use was it that they should listen?

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**Who acts:** Daa, I, use · **What happens:** not help, hear, blow, drown, be, listen · **To what, where:** nest, noise, use

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of the Wind. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Daa, I, use), 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:pg27200:212:164
# text = Daa and his daughters could not help hearing it, so I blew about their ears to drown the noise; what use was it that they should listen?
1	Daa	Daa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	hearing	hear	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	xcomp	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
14	about	about	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	drown	drown	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	29	punct	_	_
22	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	29	obj	_	_
23	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
26	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
27	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
28	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
29	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **help** | could | Daa and Daa's daughters |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **hear** *not said to happen* | gerund | Daa and Daa's daughters *not said here* | nest |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 3 | **blow** | past | I |  |  |  |  | about walls's ears | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **drown** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | the noise |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent noise=Patient |
| 5 | **is a** | past | use | use |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **listen** | should | use |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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