---
title: The Raven nodded very gravely, and said, “It may be--it may be!” — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The Raven nodded very gravely, and said, “It may be--it may be!” Who acts: Raven, much. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/13/17/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Andersen's Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/) / [The Snow Queen, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/13/) / 17

# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 3, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Raven nodded very gravely, and said, “It may be--it may be!”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Raven, much · **What happens:** nod, say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Raven, much), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg1597:13:17
# text = The Raven nodded very gravely, and said, “It may be--it may be!”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Raven	Raven	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	gravely	gravely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **nod** | past | the Raven |  |  |  |  | gravely *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | the Raven *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* | may | much |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **be** *in a quote* | may | much |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/13/16/)
- next →: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/13/18/)
- ↑ back to [The Snow Queen, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/13/)