---
title: We can't sing, certainly; but we have a sounding-board, or something… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: We can't sing, certainly; but we have a sounding-board, or something of the kind, within us; we can feel that, though we don't talk about it." Who acts: We. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/18/)

<!-- 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/) / 18

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
We can't sing, certainly; but we have a sounding-board, or something of the kind, within us; we can feel that, though we don't talk about it."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** We · **What happens:** not sing, have, feel, not talk · **To what, where:** sounding board, that

<!-- .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 (We), 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:pg27200:145:18
# text = We can't sing, certainly; but we have a sounding-board, or something of the kind, within us; we can feel that, though we don't talk about it."
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	sounding	sounding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	board	board	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	10	obl	_	_
18	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	kind	kind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	within	within	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	27	punct	_	_
25	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
28	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
30	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	34	mark	_	_
31	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
32	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	34	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	34	advmod	_	_
34	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	parataxis	_	_
35	about	about	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
36	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **sing** *speech: express* | can | We |  |  |  |  | certainly *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **have** | present | we | a sounding board |  |  |  | something *obl* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent board=Patient |
| 3 | **feel** | can | we | that |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **talk** | present · do-support | we |  |  |  |  | about board | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about it=Topic |

<!-- .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: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/17/)
- next →: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/19/)
- ↑ back to [The Portuguese Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/145/)