---
title: Sixteen years ago that woman was a child, playing in the garden of t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Sixteen years ago that woman was a child, playing in the garden of the old parsonage, in the country. Who acts: woman, child. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Third Evening, sentence 2

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Sixteen years ago that woman was a child, playing in the garden of the old parsonage, in the country.

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**Who acts:** woman, child · **What happens:** be, play · **To what, where:** child, garden

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, child), 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:pg27200:94:2
# text = Sixteen years ago that woman was a child, playing in the garden of the old parsonage, in the country.
1	Sixteen	sixteen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	playing	play	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	parsonage	parsonage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | woman | a child |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **play** | gerund | a child *not said here* |  |  | the garden of the old parsonage |  | in the country | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=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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