---
title: There was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish. Who acts: woman. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, sentence 1

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There was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish.

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**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** be, wish, have, not obtain · **To what, where:** little child, wish

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg27200:79:1
# text = There was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	much	much	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	obtain	obtain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	wish	wish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a woman |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **wish** | past | a woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **have** | to-infinitive | a woman *not said here* | a little child |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **obtain** | could | woman | woman's wish |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wish=Theme |
| 5 | **wish** |  | woman |  |  |  |  |  | nom wish «feeling intransitive»: poss=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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