---
title: "How I left the world?" she replied; "why, I can scarcely tell you. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "How I left the world?" she replied; "why, I can scarcely tell you. Who acts: flower. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/168/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Snowdrop, sentence 168

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"How I left the world?" she replied; "why, I can scarcely tell you.

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**Who acts:** flower · **What happens:** leave, reply, tell · **To what, where:** world, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flower), 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:pg27200:177:168
# text = "How I left the world?" she replied; "why, I can scarcely tell you.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** *in a quote* | past | flower | the world |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent world=Theme |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: ask* | past | flower |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | can | flower |  | you |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |

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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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