---
title: The children held them to their mouths, and tried to blow away the w… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The children held them to their mouths, and tried to blow away the whole coronal with one puff of the breath. Who acts: children. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Conceited Apple-branch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Conceited Apple-branch, sentence 36

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The children held them to their mouths, and tried to blow away the whole coronal with one puff of the breath.

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** hold, try, blow away, puff · **To what, where:** feathers, whole coronal, breath

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Conceited Apple-branch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children), 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:pg27200:6:36
# text = The children held them to their mouths, and tried to blow away the whole coronal with one puff of the breath.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	blow	blow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	away	away	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	coronal	coronal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	puff	puff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past | the children | feathers *= feather* |  |  |  | to children's mouths | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **try** | past | the children *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **blow away** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the children *not said here* | the whole coronal |  |  |  | with one puff of the breath | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent coronal=Patient |
| 4 | **puff** |  |  | the breath |  |  |  |  | nom puff «phenomenon transitive»: of=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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