---
title: When quite a little child she would delight in catching flies, and t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: When quite a little child she would delight in catching flies, and tearing off their wings, so as to make creeping things of them. Who acts: little child. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf, with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When quite a little child she would delight in catching flies, and tearing off their wings, so as to make creeping things of them.

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**Who acts:** little child · **What happens:** delight, tear off, make, creep · **To what, where:** wings, things

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little child), 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:pg27200:37:3
# text = When quite a little child she would delight in catching flies, and tearing off their wings, so as to make creeping things of them.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	8	mark	_	_
2	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	5	det:predet	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	delight	delight	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	catching	catching	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	tearing	tear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
15	off	off	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
20	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
23	creeping	creep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	xcomp	_	_
24	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **delight** | would | quite little child |  |  |  |  | in catching flies | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **tear off** | gerund | quite little child *not said here* | flies's wings |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location wing=Theme |
| 3 | **make** | to-infinitive | quite little child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **creep** | gerund | quite little child *not said here* | things of things |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location thing=Theme |

<!-- .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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