---
title: There might have been mice on board, but only one man and a half, th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There might have been mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper and the laborer's boy. 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 38

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There might have been mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper and the laborer's boy.

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**What happens:** have, be · **To what, where:** one man, mice, board

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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: 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:pg27200:5:38
# text = There might have been mice on board, but only one man and a half, the skipper and the laborer's boy.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
2	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	cop	_	_
5	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	board	board	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	only	only	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	skipper	skipper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	laborer	laborer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	's	's	PART	POS	_	21	case	_	_
23	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | might |  | one man and a half and the skipper and the laborer's boy |  | there |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | participle |  | mice |  | board |  |  | tree rules |

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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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