---
title: “I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone can live to se… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone can live to see!” said the shadow. Who acts: shadow, cruel thing. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow, 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/pg1597/23/254/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shadow, sentence 254

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“I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone can live to see!” said the shadow.

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**Who acts:** shadow, cruel thing · **What happens:** live, see, say · **To what, where:** cruel thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shadow, cruel thing), 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:pg1597:23:254
# text = “I have lived to see the most cruel thing that anyone can live to see!” said the shadow.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	lived	live	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	ccomp	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	9	advmod	_	_
9	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
12	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	nsubj	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** *in a quote* | present · perfect | the shadow *= shadow* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the shadow *= shadow* *not said here* | the cruel thing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 3 | **live** *in a quote* | can | the cruel thing |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **see** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the cruel thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **say** *speech: express* | past | the shadow |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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