---
title: My mother prefers one that is deep and moral; but my father likes so… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: My mother prefers one that is deep and moral; but my father likes something funny, to make him laugh." Who acts: mother, father. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flying Trunk, sentence 26

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My mother prefers one that is deep and moral; but my father likes something funny, to make him laugh."

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**Who acts:** mother, father · **What happens:** prefer, be, like, make, laugh · **To what, where:** one, something, father

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, father), 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:pg27200:35:26
# text = My mother prefers one that is deep and moral; but my father likes something funny, to make him laugh."
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	prefers	prefer	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	obj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	acl:relcl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	moral	moral	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	likes	like	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
15	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	obj	_	_
16	funny	funny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prefer** | present | My mother | one |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | deep *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **like** | present | my father | something |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot something=Theme |
| 5 | **make** | to-infinitive | my father *not said here* | father |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **laugh** | infinitive | father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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