---
title: My secret is my prisoner; if I let the captive escape, I shall be hi… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: My secret is my prisoner; if I let the captive escape, I shall be his!" Who acts: secret, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Psyche, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Psyche, sentence 217

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My secret is my prisoner; if I let the captive escape, I shall be his!"

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**Who acts:** secret, I · **What happens:** be, let · **To what, where:** prisoner, captive escape, worm

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Psyche. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (secret, I), 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:pg27200:151:217
# text = My secret is my prisoner; if I let the captive escape, I shall be his!"
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	prisoner	prisoner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	captive	captive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	escape	escape	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | My secret | my prisoner |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **let** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I | the captive escape |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent escape=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | shall | I | worm |  |  |  |  | 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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