---
title: There was once a little boy who had caught cold; he had gone out and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a little boy who had caught cold; he had gone out and got wet feet. Who acts: little boy, boy. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, sentence 1

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There was once a little boy who had caught cold; he had gone out and got wet feet.

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**Who acts:** little boy, boy · **What happens:** be, catch, go out, get · **To what, where:** little boy, wet feet

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little boy, boy), 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:pg27200:72:1
# text = There was once a little boy who had caught cold; he had gone out and got wet feet.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
15	out	out	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
18	wet	wet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a little boy |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **catch** | past · perfect · passive |  | a little boy |  |  |  | cold *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **go out** | past · perfect | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **get** | past | boy *not said here* | wet feet |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer foot=Stimulus |

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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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