---
title: “That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and with t… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and with these words off he went. Who acts: That, Stork, snow. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/10/29/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Fir Tree, sentence 29

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“That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and with these words off he went.

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**Who acts:** That, Stork, snow · **What happens:** take, explain, say, go · **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 (That, Stork, snow), 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:pg1597:10:29
# text = “That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and with these words off he went.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Stork	Stork	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	_
20	off	off	ADP	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** *in a quote* | would | That |  |  |  | time |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **explain** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | That *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Stork |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **go** | past | snow |  |  |  |  | with this words | vn help-72.1-2 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent with word=Beneficiary |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/10/28/)
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