---
title: Her heart clung to the little creature, but she could not explain to… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Her heart clung to the little creature, but she could not explain to her husband the circumstances in which it was placed. Who acts: heart. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 1, sentence 101

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Her heart clung to the little creature, but she could not explain to her husband the circumstances in which it was placed.

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**Who acts:** heart · **What happens:** cling, not explain, place · **To what, where:** heart, circumstances, husband, creature

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, 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 (heart), 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:pg27200:83:101
# text = Her heart clung to the little creature, but she could not explain to her husband the circumstances in which it was placed.
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
3	clung	cling	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	circumstances	circumstance	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	obl	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux:pass	_	_
23	placed	place	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cling** | participle |  | wife's heart *not said here* |  |  |  | to the little creature | vn cling-22.5 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme to creature=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **not** **explain** *speech: assert* | could | wife's heart | the circumstances | wife's husband |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent circumstance=Topic to husband=Recipient |
| 3 | **place** | past · passive |  | creature |  | the circumstances |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme in which=Destination |

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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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