---
title: "Ours are better," said the old fisherman, Jurgen's foster-father; "… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Ours are better," said the old fisherman, Jurgen's foster-father; "these have no strength." Who acts: Ours, better, these. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2, 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 2, sentence 96

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"Ours are better," said the old fisherman, Jurgen's foster-father; "these have no strength."

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**Who acts:** Ours, better, these · **What happens:** be, say, have · **To what, where:** old fisherman, strength · **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 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ours, better, these), 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:pg27200:159:96
# text = "Ours are better," said the old fisherman, Jurgen's foster-father; "these have no strength."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ours	Our	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	fisherman	fisherman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	Jurgen	Jurgen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	's	's	PART	POS	_	12	case	_	_
14	foster	foster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	20	nsubj	_	_
20	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
21	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	22	det	_	_
22	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	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 | Ours |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | better | the old fisherman and Jurgen's foster father |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | these | no strength |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent strength=Patient |

<!-- .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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