---
title: "We don't believe it," they replied; and at last little Gerda began… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "We don't believe it," they replied; and at last little Gerda began to doubt it herself. " Who acts: We, sparrows. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"We don't believe it," they replied; and at last little Gerda began to doubt it herself. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** We, sparrows · **What happens:** not believe, reply, begin, doubt · **To what, where:** sledge, last little Gerda · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, sparrows), 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:pg27200:172:10
# text = "We don't believe it," they replied; and at last little Gerda began to doubt it herself. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	Gerda	Gerda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
17	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	doubt	doubt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **believe** *in a quote* | present · do-support | We | sledge |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | sparrows *= sparrow* |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **begin** | past | We *not said here* |  |  | last little Gerda |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **doubt** | to-infinitive | We *not said here* | sledge |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme herself=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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