---
title: The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him. Who acts: Sea King, aged mother. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 10

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The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him.

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**Who acts:** Sea King, aged mother · **What happens:** be, keep, house · **To what, where:** widower

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sea King, aged mother), 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:pg27200:75:10
# text = The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Sea	Sea	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	widower	widower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	aged	aged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	kept	keep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	amod	_	_
17	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past · perfect | the Sea King | a widower |  |  | year |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **keep** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **house** |  | widower's aged mother |  |  |  |  | for widower | tree rules |

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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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