---
title: "We are as happy as human beings can be," said the young couple from… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "We are as happy as human beings can be," said the young couple from the depths of their hearts. Who acts: We, young couple. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1, sentence 8

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"We are as happy as human beings can be," said the young couple from the depths of their hearts.

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**Who acts:** We, young couple · **What happens:** be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, young couple), 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:pg27200:158:8
# text = "We are as happy as human beings can be," said the young couple from the depths of their hearts.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	as	as	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	beings	being	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
17	from	from	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	depths	depth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	hearts	heart	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | We |  |  |  |  | happy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the young couple from the depths of beings's hearts |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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