---
title: A duck once arrived from Portugal, but there were some who said she… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: A duck once arrived from Portugal, but there were some who said she came from Spain, which is almost the same thing. Who acts: duck, some, Spain. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, 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/pg27200/145/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Portuguese Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/) / 1

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A duck once arrived from Portugal, but there were some who said she came from Spain, which is almost the same thing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** duck, some, Spain · **What happens:** arrive, be, say, come · **To what, where:** Portugal, Spain, same thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (duck, some, Spain), 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:pg27200:145:1
# text = A duck once arrived from Portugal, but there were some who said she came from Spain, which is almost the same thing.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
4	arrived	arrive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Portugal	Portugal	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	13	nsubj	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	Spain	Spain	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
19	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	nsubj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
21	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **arrive** | past | a duck |  |  | Portugal |  | once *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from portugal=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **be** | past | a duck *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | some |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **come** | past | duck |  |  | Spain |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from spain=Initial\_Location |
| 5 | **is a** | present | Spain | the same thing |  |  |  | almost *property* | 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 Phoenix Bird, 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/144/21/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Portuguese Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/)