---
title: Sometimes it would be a man hanging on a gibbet and holding a heart… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Sometimes it would be a man hanging on a gibbet and holding a heart in his hand as if he had been stealing hearts. Who acts: visit, man, lawyer. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Ida's Flowers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Ida's Flowers, sentence 60

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Sometimes it would be a man hanging on a gibbet and holding a heart in his hand as if he had been stealing hearts.

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**Who acts:** visit, man, lawyer · **What happens:** be, hang, hold, steal · **To what, where:** man, gibbet, heart, hand, hearts

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Ida's Flowers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (visit, man, lawyer), 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:pg27200:73:60
# text = Sometimes it would be a man hanging on a gibbet and holding a heart in his hand as if he had been stealing hearts.
1	Sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	hanging	hang	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	gibbet	gibbet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	conj	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	aux	_	_
23	stealing	steal	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
24	hearts	heart	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | visit | a man |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hang** | gerund | a man *not said here* |  |  | a gibbet |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on gibbet=Location |
| 3 | **hold** | gerund | a man *not said here* | a heart |  | lawyer's hand |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent heart=Theme in hand=Location |
| 4 | **steal** | past · perfect · progressive | lawyer | hearts |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location heart=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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