---
title: If you understand the crows' language then I can explain it better. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: If you understand the crows' language then I can explain it better. Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Prince and Princess, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/14/)

<!-- 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 Prince and Princess](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/) / 14

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Prince and Princess, sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If you understand the crows' language then I can explain it better.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** understand, explain · **To what, where:** language

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Prince and Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg27200:173:14
# text = If you understand the crows' language then I can explain it better.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	understand	understand	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	crows	crow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	'	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | the crows's language |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer language=Stimulus |
| 2 | **explain** *speech: assert* | can | I | language |  |  | then | good *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

<!-- .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 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/13/)
- next →: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/15/)
- ↑ back to [The Prince and Princess](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/)