---
title: "Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the inkstand. " — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the inkstand. " Who acts: inkstand. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Pen and the Inkstand, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Pen and the Inkstand, sentence 38

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"Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the inkstand. "

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**Who acts:** inkstand · **What happens:** give, write, retort · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (inkstand), 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:pg27200:142:38
# text = "Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the inkstand. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	_
12	retorted	retort	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	inkstand	inkstand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *in a quote* | past | the inkstand *= inkstand* |  | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Theme |
| 2 | **write** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the inkstand *= inkstand* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **retort** *speech: other* | past | the inkstand |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |

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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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