---
title: These boys bought the bird for eightpence, and so the clerk returned… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: These boys bought the bird for eightpence, and so the clerk returned to Copenhagen. " Who acts: boys, clerk. 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 95

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These boys bought the bird for eightpence, and so the clerk returned to Copenhagen. "

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**Who acts:** boys, clerk · **What happens:** buy, return · **To what, where:** bird, Copenhagen

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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 (boys, clerk), 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:pg27200:44:95
# text = These boys bought the bird for eightpence, and so the clerk returned to Copenhagen. "
1	These	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	bought	buy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	eightpence	eightpence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	clerk	clerk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Copenhagen	Copenhagen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **buy** | past | this boys | the bird |  |  |  | for eightpence | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent bird=Theme for eightpence=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **return** | past | the clerk |  | Copenhagen |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to copenhagen=Result |

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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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