---
title: “A word is a shadow,” said the shadow, “and as such it must speak.” — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “A word is a shadow,” said the shadow, “and as such it must speak.” Who acts: word, shadow. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/23/95/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Andersen's Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/) / [The Shadow](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/23/) / 95

# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shadow, sentence 95

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“A word is a shadow,” said the shadow, “and as such it must speak.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** word, shadow · **What happens:** be, say, speak · **To what, where:** shadow · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (word, shadow), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg1597:23:95
# text = “A word is a shadow,” said the shadow, “and as such it must speak.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	obl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | a word | a shadow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a shadow | the shadow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | must | word |  |  |  |  | as such | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 94](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/23/94/)
- next →: [sentence 96](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/23/96/)
- ↑ back to [The Shadow](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/23/)