---
title: “Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a pewter s… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a pewter soldier which I had when I was a little boy!” Who acts: man, young man. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Old House, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Old House, sentence 117

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“Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a pewter soldier which I had when I was a little boy!”

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**Who acts:** man, young man · **What happens:** not be, remind, have, be · **To what, where:** man, young man, pewter soldier, little boy

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Old House. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, young man), 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:pg1597:19:117
# text = “Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds me of a story about a pewter soldier which I had when I was a little boy!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nay	nay	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	reminds	remind	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	about	about	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	pewter	pewter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
21	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	obj	_	_
22	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	_
24	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	29	mark	_	_
25	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **remind** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present | man |  | the young man *= man* |  |  | of a story about a pewter soldier | vn tell-37.2 «NP V NP.recipient PP.topic»: agent=Agent i=Recipient of story=Topic |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | past | the young man *= man* | a pewter soldier |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Patient |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | the young man *= man* | a little boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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