---
title: Sometimes it was an old witch riding through the air on a broom and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Sometimes it was an old witch riding through the air on a broom and carrying her husband on her nose. Who acts: visit, old witch. 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 61

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Sometimes it was an old witch riding through the air on a broom and carrying her husband on her nose.

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**Who acts:** visit, old witch · **What happens:** be, ride, carry · **To what, where:** old witch, air, husband, nose

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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, old witch), 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:pg27200:73:61
# text = Sometimes it was an old witch riding through the air on a broom and carrying her husband on her nose.
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	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	riding	ride	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	through	through	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	broom	broom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	carrying	carry	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	conj	_	_
16	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	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** | past | visit | a old witch |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ride** | gerund | a old witch *not said here* |  |  | the air |  | on a broom | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent through air=Trajectory |
| 3 | **carry** | gerund | a old witch *not said here* | Ida's husband |  | Ida's nose |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent husband=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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