---
title: Gladly would she have plucked a flower, but she could not overcome h… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Gladly would she have plucked a flower, but she could not overcome her reluctance to break one off. Who acts: heart. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Leaf From Heaven, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Leaf From Heaven, sentence 24

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Gladly would she have plucked a flower, but she could not overcome her reluctance to break one off.

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**Who acts:** heart · **What happens:** pluck, not overcome, break off · **To what, where:** flower, reluctance, one

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Leaf From Heaven. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heart), 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:pg27200:49:24
# text = Gladly would she have plucked a flower, but she could not overcome her reluctance to break one off.
1	Gladly	gladly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	flower	flower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	overcome	overcome	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	reluctance	reluctance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	obj	_	_
19	off	off	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pluck** | would · perfect | heart | a flower |  |  |  | gladly *property* | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flower=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **overcome** | could | heart | heart's reluctance |  |  |  |  | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot reluctance=Theme |
| 3 | **break off** | to-infinitive | heart *not said here* | one |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer one=Patient |

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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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