---
title: How foolish it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: How foolish it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their performance, and yet we men often commit that folly. Who acts: subject, we, men, violin. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Pen and the Inkstand, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Pen and the Inkstand, sentence 31

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How foolish it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their performance, and yet we men often commit that folly.

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**Who acts:** subject, we, men, violin · **What happens:** be, boast, man, commit, perform · **To what, where:** folly

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Pen and the Inkstand. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (subject, we, men, violin), 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:pg27200:142:31
# text = How foolish it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their performance, and yet we men often commit that folly.
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	2	advmod	_	_
2	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	violin	violin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bow	bow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	boast	boast	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	performance	performance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
22	often	often	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	commit	commit	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
24	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	25	det	_	_
25	folly	folly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would | subject |  |  |  |  | for the foolish violin and the bow | tree rules |
| 2 | **boast** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | subject *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of violin's performance | vn complain-37.8 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **man** |  | we |  |  |  | yet |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **commit** | present | men | that folly |  |  |  | often *property* | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent folly=Theme |
| 5 | **perform** |  | violin |  |  |  |  |  | nom performance «communication transitive»: poss=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.

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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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