---
title: She would hold my head between her hands, and sing the songs she nev… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She would hold my head between her hands, and sing the songs she never sang at other times, for the Turks, our masters, would not allow it. Who acts: mother. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shepherd's Story of the Bond of Friendship, with its dependency 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shepherd's Story of the Bond of Friendship, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She would hold my head between her hands, and sing the songs she never sang at other times, for the Turks, our masters, would not allow it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** hold, sing, not sing, not allow · **To what, where:** head, hands, songs

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shepherd's Story of the Bond of Friendship. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:36:12
# text = She would hold my head between her hands, and sing the songs she never sang at other times, for the Turks, our masters, would not allow it.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	between	between	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	Turks	Turk	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	masters	master	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
29	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	30	advmod	_	_
30	allow	allow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | would | mother | my head |  | mother's hands |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent head=Theme between hand=Location |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | infinitive | mother *not said here* | the songs |  |  |  | for the Turks and our masters | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent song=Theme for turk=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **not** **sing** *speech: express* | past | mother | the songs *not said here* |  |  | time |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **allow** | would | mother *not said here* | head |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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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