---
title: He went on at first like a mere automaton, without thought or wish;… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He went on at first like a mere automaton, without thought or wish; therefore the goloshes had no opportunity to display their magic power. Who acts: man, goloshes. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, sentence 13

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He went on at first like a mere automaton, without thought or wish; therefore the goloshes had no opportunity to display their magic power.

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**Who acts:** man, goloshes · **What happens:** go on, have, display · **To what, where:** opportunity, magic power

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, goloshes), 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:pg27200:44:13
# text = He went on at first like a mere automaton, without thought or wish; therefore the goloshes had no opportunity to display their magic power.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	2	obl	_	_
6	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	mere	mere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	automaton	automaton	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	without	without	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	wish	wish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
16	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	goloshes	golosh	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	opportunity	opportunity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	display	display	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
25	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go on** | past | man |  |  |  |  | like a mere automaton | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme at first=Location |
| 2 | **have** | past | the goloshes | no opportunity |  |  |  | therefore *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent opportunity=Patient |
| 3 | **display** | to-infinitive | the goloshes *not said here* | goloshes's magic power |  |  |  |  | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent power=Theme |

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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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