---
title: He went to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat at the helm, while the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He went to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat at the helm, while the skipper sat over the grog-can. Who acts: boy, skipper. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, sentence 21

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He went to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat at the helm, while the skipper sat over the grog-can.

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**Who acts:** boy, skipper · **What happens:** go, sit · **To what, where:** wretched vessel, helm

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, skipper), 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:pg27200:5:21
# text = He went to sea in a wretched vessel, and sat at the helm, while the skipper sat over the grog-can.
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	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	vessel	vessel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	helm	helm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	skipper	skipper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
20	over	over	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
22	grog	grog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | boy |  |  | a wretched vessel |  | to sea | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to sea=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **sit** | past |  |  |  | the helm |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at helm=Location |
| 3 | **sit** | past | the skipper |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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