---
title: Sometimes, but very seldom, he heard of Christina, through a postill… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Sometimes, but very seldom, he heard of Christina, through a postillion or eel-seller who was passing. Who acts: father, eel seller. 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 95

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Sometimes, but very seldom, he heard of Christina, through a postillion or eel-seller who was passing.

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**Who acts:** father, eel seller · **What happens:** hear, pass

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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 (father, eel seller), 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:pg27200:51:95
# text = Sometimes, but very seldom, he heard of Christina, through a postillion or eel-seller who was passing.
1	Sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
3	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	seldom	seldom	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Christina	Christina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	through	through	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	postillion	postillion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	eel	eel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	seller	seller	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
19	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	passing	pass	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | father |  |  |  |  | of Christina; seldom, sometimes *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of christina=Stimulus |
| 2 | **pass** | past · progressive | eel seller |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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