---
title: "Who should know better than I do?" said the animal, while his eyes… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Who should know better than I do?" said the animal, while his eyes sparkled. " Who acts: animal, eyes. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Robber-girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Robber-girl, sentence 60

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"Who should know better than I do?" said the animal, while his eyes sparkled. "

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**Who acts:** animal, eyes · **What happens:** know, do, say, sparkle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Robber-girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (animal, eyes), 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:pg27200:174:60
# text = "Who should know better than I do?" said the animal, while his eyes sparkled. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	ccomp	_	_
6	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sparkled	sparkle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | should |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | present | the animal *= animal* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the animal |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sparkle** | past | Spitzbergen's eyes |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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