---
title: This is the story told me by the sparrows one evening when I begged… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: This is the story told me by the sparrows one evening when I begged them to relate some tale to me. Who acts: This, story, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Buckwheat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Buckwheat, sentence 35

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This is the story told me by the sparrows one evening when I begged them to relate some tale to me.

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**Who acts:** This, story, I · **What happens:** be, tell, beg, relate · **To what, where:** story, me, heads, tale · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Buckwheat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, story, I), 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:pg27200:14:35
# text = This is the story told me by the sparrows one evening when I begged them to relate some tale to me.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	relate	relate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
18	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
19	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | This | the story |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the story |  | me |  | evening | by the sparrows | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | I |  | heads *= head* |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **relate** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | some tale | me |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent tale=Topic to i=Recipient |

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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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