---
title: "'I understand,' he said; 'you would like to have life breathed into… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "'I understand,' he said; 'you would like to have life breathed into your puppets, so that they might be living actors, and you their director. Who acts: manager, you, puppets. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Puppet-show Man, with its dependency tree and
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/152/30/)

<!-- 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 Puppet-show Man](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/152/) / 30

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Puppet-show Man, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"'I understand,' he said; 'you would like to have life breathed into your puppets, so that they might be living actors, and you their director.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** manager, you, puppets · **What happens:** understand, say, like, have, breathe, be · **To what, where:** life, puppets · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Puppet-show Man. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (manager, you, puppets), 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:pg27200:152:30
# text = "'I understand,' he said; 'you would like to have life breathed into your puppets, so that they might be living actors, and you their director.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	understand	understand	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	breathed	breathe	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	puppets	puppet	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
22	so	so	SCONJ	IN	_	28	case	_	_
23	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	fixed	_	_
24	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
25	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
26	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	cop	_	_
27	living	living	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	actors	actor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
31	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	33	nsubj	_	_
32	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	33	nmod:poss	_	_
33	director	director	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** *in a quote* | present | manager |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | manager |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **like** *in a quote* | would | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **have** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | life |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Patient |
| 5 | **breathe** *in a quote* | participle |  | life *not said here* |  | your puppets |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **is** *in a quote* | might | puppets *= puppet* |  |  |  |  | so living actors | tree rules |
| 7 | **director** *in a quote* |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/152/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/152/31/)
- ↑ back to [The Puppet-show Man](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/152/)