---
title: It is a duty we owe to ourselves that we may be nice and fat when we… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It is a duty we owe to ourselves that we may be nice and fat when we come to be embalmed with sage and onions and apples." Who acts: business, we, ourselves. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, sentence 64

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It is a duty we owe to ourselves that we may be nice and fat when we come to be embalmed with sage and onions and apples."

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**Who acts:** business, we, ourselves · **What happens:** be, owe, come, embalm · **To what, where:** duty, ourselves

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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 (business, we, ourselves), 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:pg27200:145:64
# text = It is a duty we owe to ourselves that we may be nice and fat when we come to be embalmed with sage and onions and apples."
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	duty	duty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	owe	owe	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	ourselves	ourselve	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
10	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
13	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	acl:relcl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	fat	fat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	embalmed	embalm	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	xcomp	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	sage	sage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	onions	onion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	conj	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	apples	apple	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | business | a duty |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **owe** | present | we | a duty *not said here* |  |  |  | to ourselves *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent duty=Theme to ourselve=Goal |
| 3 | **is** | may | ourselves |  |  |  |  | nice *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | ourselves *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **come** | present | we |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **embalm** | to-infinitive · passive | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with sage and onions and apples | 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.

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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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