---
title: I will tell you a story that was told me when I was a little boy. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I will tell you a story that was told me when I was a little boy. Who acts: I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Old Man Does Is Always Right, 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/pg27200/132/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [What the Old Man Does Is Always Right](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/132/) / 1

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the Old Man Does Is Always Right, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I will tell you a story that was told me when I was a little boy.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** tell, be · **To what, where:** story, you, me, little boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Old Man Does Is Always Right. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg27200:132:1
# text = I will tell you a story that was told me when I was a little boy.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	16	mark	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | future | I | a story | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient story=Topic |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | a story | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient i=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** | past | I | a little boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [The Old House, 141](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/131/141/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/132/2/)
- ↑ back to [What the Old Man Does Is Always Right](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/132/)