---
title: "Shall I sing once more before the emperor?" asked the nightingale,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Shall I sing once more before the emperor?" asked the nightingale, who thought he was present. Who acts: nightingale, emperor. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Nightingale, sentence 54

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"Shall I sing once more before the emperor?" asked the nightingale, who thought he was present.

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**Who acts:** nightingale, emperor · **What happens:** sing, ask, think, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Nightingale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nightingale, emperor), 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:pg27200:125:54
# text = "Shall I sing once more before the emperor?" asked the nightingale, who thought he was present.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Shall	shall	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sing	sing	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	6	advmod	_	_
6	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
7	before	before	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	nightingale	nightingale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
17	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	present	present	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* *in a quote* | present | the nightingale *= nightingale* |  |  |  | before the emperor |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before emperor=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the nightingale |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the nightingale |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | emperor |  |  |  |  | present *property* | 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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