---
title: "We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in it is pie… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in it is piep! piep! piep!" Who acts: We, sparrows, everything. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bird of Popular Song, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bird of Popular Song, sentence 41

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"We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in it is piep! piep! piep!"

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**Who acts:** We, sparrows, everything · **What happens:** know, bury, say, live, be · **To what, where:** buried town, town, piep · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bird of Popular Song. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, sparrows, everything), 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:pg27200:11:41
# text = "We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in it is piep! piep! piep!"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	parataxis	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	buried	bury	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
6	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	18	nsubj	_	_
14	living	live	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	piep	piep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
20	piep	piep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
22	piep	piep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | present | We | the buried town |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer town=Stimulus |
| 2 | **bury** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | present | sparrows *= sparrow* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **live** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  | town |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in it=Location |
| 5 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | everything | piep |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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