---
title: Be useful, and do me a service,” said he, in jest. — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Be useful, and do me a service,” said he, in jest. Who acts: man. 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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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shadow, sentence 36

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Be useful, and do me a service,” said he, in jest.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, do, say · **To what, where:** service, me, jest · **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 (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:pg1597:23:36
# text = Be useful, and do me a service,” said he, in jest.
1	Be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	cop	_	_
2	useful	useful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	jest	jest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | useful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | infinitive |  | a service | me |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | man |  |  | jest |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent in jest=Manner |

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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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