---
title: It was a king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people always want to be wiser than everybody else.” Who acts: Bell, son, others, Such people. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Bell, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Bell, sentence 38

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It was a king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people always want to be wiser than everybody else.”

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**Who acts:** Bell, son, others, Such people · **What happens:** be, speak, say, want · **To what, where:** son · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Bell. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Bell, son, others, Such people), 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:pg1597:18:38
# text = It was a king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people always want to be wiser than everybody else.”
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	whereon	whereon	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
18	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	19	advmod	_	_
19	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	cop	_	_
22	wiser	wise	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	19	xcomp	_	_
23	than	than	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	everybody	everybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	22	obl	_	_
25	else	else	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Bell | a king's son |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | a king's son |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the others |  |  |  |  | whereon *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **want** *in a quote* | present | Such people |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Pivot |
| 5 | **is** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | Such people *not said here* |  |  |  |  | than everybody; wise *property* | tree rules |

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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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