---
title: "What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady; "that is… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady; "that is sinful!" Who acts: you, gentle lady, that. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family, sentence 38

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"What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady; "that is sinful!"

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**Who acts:** you, gentle lady, that · **What happens:** do, cry, be · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, gentle lady, that), 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:pg27200:149:38
# text = "What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady; "that is sinful!"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	sinful	sinful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you | you |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the gentle lady |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | that |  |  |  |  | sinful *property* | tree rules |

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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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