---
title: If you understand the Raven language I can tell you better.” — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If you understand the Raven language I can tell you better.” Who acts: you, I. 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.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/13/24/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 3, sentence 24

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If you understand the Raven language I can tell you better.”

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** understand, tell · **To what, where:** Raven language, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, I), 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:pg1597:13:24
# text = If you understand the Raven language I can tell you better.”
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	understand	understand	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	Raven	raven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | the Raven language |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer language=Stimulus |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can | I |  | you |  |  | good *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |

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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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