---
title: Ib sat down to write, but he could not get on at all. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Ib sat down to write, but he could not get on at all. Who acts: Ib. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, sentence 129

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Ib sat down to write, but he could not get on at all.

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**Who acts:** Ib · **What happens:** sit down, write, not get on · **To what, where:** all

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ib), 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:pg27200:51:129
# text = Ib sat down to write, but he could not get on at all.
1	Ib	Ib	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | Ib |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **write** | to-infinitive | Ib *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **get on** | could | Ib |  |  | all |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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