---
title: “If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you too, I should think. Who acts: mistress, uncouth birds. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 5, 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/pg1597/9/10/)

<!-- 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 Shoes of Fortune, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/) / 10

# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shoes of Fortune, part 5, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you too, I should think.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mistress, uncouth birds · **What happens:** laugh, say, think · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mistress, uncouth birds), 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:pg1597:9:10
# text = “If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you too, I should think.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	mistress	mistress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	obl	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
19	too	too	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** *in a quote* | can | my mistress and bird's friends |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | that uncouth birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | should | that uncouth birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «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 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/9/)
- next →: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/11/)
- ↑ back to [The Shoes of Fortune, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/9/)