---
title: Thus each mother spoke of her baby, and their babies talked after th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus each mother spoke of her baby, and their babies talked after their own fashion, and made use of the little nippers they have in their tails to nip the beard of the beetle. Who acts: mother, babies, made use. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Beetle Wh
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Beetle Who Went on His Travels, sentence 70

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Thus each mother spoke of her baby, and their babies talked after their own fashion, and made use of the little nippers they have in their tails to nip the beard of the beetle.

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**Who acts:** mother, babies, made use · **What happens:** speak, talk, make, have, nip, use · **To what, where:** tails, beard, little nippers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Beetle Who Went on His Travels. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, babies, made use), 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:pg27200:8:70
# text = Thus each mother spoke of her baby, and their babies talked after their own fashion, and made use of the little nippers they have in their tails to nip the beard of the beetle.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	det	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	babies	baby	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	after	after	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	fashion	fashion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
19	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	amod	_	_
20	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	nippers	nipper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
27	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	tails	tail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	_
30	to	to	PART	TO	_	31	mark	_	_
31	nip	nip	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	advcl	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	_
34	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	beetle	beetle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | each mother |  |  |  |  | of mother's baby; thus *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **talk** | past | third's babies |  |  |  | after third's own fashion |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **make** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 4 | **have** | present | made use of the little nippers |  |  | third's tails |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **nip** | to-infinitive | made use of the little nippers *not said here* | the beard of the beetle |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location beard=Theme |
| 6 | **use** |  |  | the little nippers |  |  |  |  | nom use «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .note -->
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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