---
title: “I ought now to tell you a story; but I don't know any more.” — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I ought now to tell you a story; but I don't know any more.” Who acts: I. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush, 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/pg1597/17/14/)

<!-- 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 Elderbush](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/) / 14

# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Elderbush, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I ought now to tell you a story; but I don't know any more.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** tell, not know · **To what, where:** story, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg1597:17:14
# text = “I ought now to tell you a story; but I don't know any more.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
16	any	any	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | ought | I | a story | you |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** *in a quote* | present · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/15/)
- ↑ back to [The Elderbush](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/)