---
title: The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did th… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their language become to him. Who acts: man, unintelligible. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shoes of Fortune, part 1, sentence 63

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The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their language become to him.

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**Who acts:** man, unintelligible · **What happens:** speak, become · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, unintelligible), 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:pg1597:5:63
# text = The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their language become to him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	boatmen	boatman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	11	advmod	_	_
11	unintelligible	unintelligible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	nsubj	_	_
12	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | man |  |  |  |  | with the boatmen; long *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with boatman=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **become** | past · do-support | the unintelligible |  | man |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

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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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