---
title: "No, I have never learnt it," said Gerda, "but my grandmother unders… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "No, I have never learnt it," said Gerda, "but my grandmother understands it, and used to speak it to me. Who acts: Gerda, grandmother. 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.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Prince and Princess, sentence 16

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"No, I have never learnt it," said Gerda, "but my grandmother understands it, and used to speak it to me.

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**Who acts:** Gerda, grandmother · **What happens:** not learn, say, understand, use, speak · **To what, where:** language, 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 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 (Gerda, grandmother), 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:pg27200:173:16
# text = "No, I have never learnt it," said Gerda, "but my grandmother understands it, and used to speak it to me.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	learnt	learn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	Gerda	Gerda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	grandmother	grandmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	understands	understand	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	conj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **learn** *in a quote* | present · perfect | Gerda | language |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Gerda |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **understand** *in a quote* | present | my grandmother | language |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 4 | **use** *in a quote* | participle | Gerda *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Gerda *not said here* | language | Gerda |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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