---
title: She always had a sprig or a few blossoms in water, let the winter be… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She always had a sprig or a few blossoms in water, let the winter be ever so severe. Who acts: lady. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, sentence 39

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She always had a sprig or a few blossoms in water, let the winter be ever so severe.

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**Who acts:** lady · **What happens:** have, let, be · **To what, where:** sprig

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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 (lady), 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:pg27200:44:39
# text = She always had a sprig or a few blossoms in water, let the winter be ever so severe.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	sprig	sprig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	blossoms	blossom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
17	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	19	advmod	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	severe	severe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | lady | a sprig or a few blossoms in water |  |  |  | always *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sprig=Patient |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive | lady *not said here* |  |  |  | winter |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | infinitive | lady *not said here* |  |  |  |  | severe *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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