---
title: "He has escaped me," he replied; "but a better time will come." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "He has escaped me," he replied; "but a better time will come." Who acts: George, better time. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/147/142/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, sentence 142

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"He has escaped me," he replied; "but a better time will come."

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**Who acts:** George, better time · **What happens:** escape, reply, come · **To what, where:** George · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (George, better time), 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:pg27200:147:142
# text = "He has escaped me," he replied; "but a better time will come."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	escaped	escape	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	amod	_	_
15	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **escape** *in a quote* | present · perfect | George | George |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme i=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | George |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **come** *in a quote* | future | a better time |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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