---
title: I am positively obliged to pass this shilling to somebody,' said she… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I am positively obliged to pass this shilling to somebody,' said she; 'I cannot, with the best intentions, lay by a bad shilling. Who acts: woman. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Silver Shilling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Silver Shilling, sentence 39

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I am positively obliged to pass this shilling to somebody,' said she; 'I cannot, with the best intentions, lay by a bad shilling.

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**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** oblige, pass, say, lay · **To what, where:** I, shilling, somebody · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Silver Shilling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg27200:167:39
# text = I am positively obliged to pass this shilling to somebody,' said she; 'I cannot, with the best intentions, lay by a bad shilling.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
3	positively	positively	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	obliged	oblige	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	shilling	shilling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	somebody	somebody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
16	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	24	amod	_	_
24	intentions	intention	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	conj	_	_
27	by	by	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	shilling	shilling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **oblige** | present · passive |  | I |  |  |  | with the best intentions; positively *property* | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Patient clause=Result |
| 2 | **pass** | to-infinitive |  | this shilling | somebody |  |  |  | vn give-13.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent shilling=Theme to somebody=Recipient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **lay** | present |  |  |  |  |  | by a bad shilling | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent by shilling=Destination |

<!-- .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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