---
title: “Where do you come from,” asked the Mice; “and what can you do?” — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Where do you come from,” asked the Mice; “and what can you do?” Who acts: you, Mice. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Fir Tree, sentence 152

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“Where do you come from,” asked the Mice; “and what can you do?”

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**Who acts:** you, Mice · **What happens:** come, ask, do · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Mice), 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:pg1597:10:152
# text = “Where do you come from,” asked the Mice; “and what can you do?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	5	advmod	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	18	obj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the Mice |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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