---
title: I should prefer to be a builder at once, there is something real in… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I should prefer to be a builder at once, there is something real in that. Who acts: I, something. 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 90

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I should prefer to be a builder at once, there is something real in that.

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**Who acts:** I, something · **What happens:** prefer, be · **To what, where:** builder

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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 (I, something), 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:pg27200:177:90
# text = I should prefer to be a builder at once, there is something real in that.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	prefer	prefer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	builder	builder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	xcomp	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	nsubj	_	_
14	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prefer** | should | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is a** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | a builder |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | present | something |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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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