---
title: "Yes, if I only knew a fresh one," said the old man, and nodded smil… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Yes, if I only knew a fresh one," said the old man, and nodded smilingly. " Who acts: old man. 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 6

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"Yes, if I only knew a fresh one," said the old man, and nodded smilingly. "

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** know, say, nod · **To what, where:** fresh one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (old man), 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:pg27200:72:6
# text = "Yes, if I only knew a fresh one," said the old man, and nodded smilingly. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	parataxis	_	_
20	smilingly	smilingly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | the old man *= man* | a fresh one |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **nod** | past |  |  |  |  |  | smilingly *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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