---
title: He's only a plaything, and if people will have playthings, why let t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He's only a plaything, and if people will have playthings, why let them, I say." Who acts: bird, people, I. 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.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, sentence 61

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He's only a plaything, and if people will have playthings, why let them, I say."

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**Who acts:** bird, people, I · **What happens:** be, have, let, say · **To what, where:** plaything, playthings, people · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (bird, people, 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:pg27200:145:61
# text = He's only a plaything, and if people will have playthings, why let them, I say."
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	plaything	plaything	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
12	playthings	plaything	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
15	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | bird | a plaything |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | future | people | playthings |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plaything=Patient |
| 3 | **let** | infinitive |  | people |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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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