---
title: "I spat!" cried the General's lady; "what an expression! — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "I spat!" cried the General's lady; "what an expression! Who acts: lady. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1, 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/pg27200/146/27/)

<!-- 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 Porter's Son, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/) / 27

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I spat!" cried the General's lady; "what an expression!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** lady · **What happens:** spat, cry · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lady), 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:pg27200:146:27
# text = "I spat!" cried the General's lady; "what an expression!
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	spat	spat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	General	General	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	parataxis	_	_
14	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	expression	expression	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spat** *in a quote* | present | the General's lady *= lady* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the General's lady |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/28/)
- ↑ back to [The Porter's Son, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/146/)