---
title: Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic draught. Who acts: witch. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 27

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Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic draught.

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**Who acts:** witch · **What happens:** place, prepare · **To what, where:** cauldron, fire, magic draught

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg27200:77:27
# text = Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic draught.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	cauldron	cauldron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	prepare	prepare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	draught	draught	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **place** | past | the witch | witch's cauldron |  | the fire | then |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent cauldron=Theme on fire=Destination |
| 2 | **prepare** | to-infinitive | the witch *not said here* | the magic draught |  |  |  |  | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent draught=Patient |

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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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