---
title: "Travelling would be all very well," said the student of divinity to… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Travelling would be all very well," said the student of divinity to himself, "if we had no bodies, or if the body could rest while the soul if flying. Who acts: Travelling, we, body. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Best Thing the Goloshes Did, with its 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Best Thing the Goloshes Did, sentence 52

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"Travelling would be all very well," said the student of divinity to himself, "if we had no bodies, or if the body could rest while the soul if flying.

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**Who acts:** Travelling, we, body · **What happens:** be, say, have, rest, fly · **To what, where:** student, Travelling, bodies, soul · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Best Thing the Goloshes Did. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Travelling, we, body), 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:pg27200:45:52
# text = "Travelling would be all very well," said the student of divinity to himself, "if we had no bodies, or if the body could rest while the soul if flying.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Travelling	travelling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	all	all	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	student	student	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	divinity	divinity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
20	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
22	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	23	det	_	_
23	bodies	body	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
25	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
26	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
29	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	rest	rest	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	conj	_	_
31	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	soul	soul	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	xcomp	_	_
34	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	35	mark	_	_
35	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	30	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | would | Travelling *not said here* |  |  |  |  | all, well *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Travelling | the student of divinity | Travelling |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | we | no bodies |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent body=Patient |
| 4 | **rest** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | could | the body | the soul |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **fly** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | gerund | the body *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=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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