---
title: But thou canst not return to earth, and I can do nothing for thee." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But thou canst not return to earth, and I can do nothing for thee." Who acts: thou, I. 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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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Snowdrop, sentence 205

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But thou canst not return to earth, and I can do nothing for thee."

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**Who acts:** thou, I · **What happens:** not return, do · **To what, where:** nothing

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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 (thou, I), 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:pg27200:177:205
# text = But thou canst not return to earth, and I can do nothing for thee."
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	5	nsubj	_	_
3	canst	can	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	return	return	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	thee	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **return** | can | thou |  |  |  |  | to earth *result* | vn convert-26.6.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to earth=Result |
| 2 | **do** | can | I | nothing |  |  |  | for thee | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |

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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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