---
title: "My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it," observed th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it," observed the General. Who acts: wife. 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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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, sentence 84

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"My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it," observed the General.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** sing, not speak, observe · **To what, where:** language, General · **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 (wife), 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:pg27200:147:84
# text = "My wife sings the language, but she does not speak it," observed the General.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sings	sing	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	_
16	observed	observe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	General	General	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* *in a quote* | present | My wife | the language |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present · do-support | wife | language |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **observe** | past |  | the General |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent general=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.

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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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