---
title: “Our son shall not go into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better t… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Our son shall not go into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall give the commission to the white gnats. Who acts: son, you, we. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Happy Family, sentence 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Our son shall not go into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall give the commission to the white gnats.

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**Who acts:** son, you, we · **What happens:** not go, know, give · **To what, where:** ant hill, nothing, commission, white gnats

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, you, we), 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:pg1597:20:44
# text = “Our son shall not go into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we shall give the commission to the white gnats.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	into	into	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	ant	ant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
13	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
16	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	15	obj	_	_
17	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	amod	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
21	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	commission	commission	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	gnats	gnat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go** *in a quote* | shall | Our son |  |  | a ant hill |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into hill=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | you | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 3 | **give** *in a quote* | shall | we | the commission | the white gnats |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent commission=Theme to gnat=Recipient |

<!-- .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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