---
title: "We had such an excellent dinner yesterday," said an old mouse of th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "We had such an excellent dinner yesterday," said an old mouse of the female sex to another who had not been present at the feast. " Who acts: We, old mouse. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Soup From a Sausage Skewer, with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Soup From a Sausage Skewer, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"We had such an excellent dinner yesterday," said an old mouse of the female sex to another who had not been present at the feast. "

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**Who acts:** We, old mouse · **What happens:** have, say, not be · **To what, where:** excellent dinner, feast · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Soup From a Sausage Skewer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, old mouse), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:178:1
# text = "We had such an excellent dinner yesterday," said an old mouse of the female sex to another who had not been present at the feast. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
4	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	7	det:predet	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	excellent	excellent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	female	female	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	sex	sex	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	25	obl	_	_
21	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	25	nsubj	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
24	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	25	cop	_	_
25	present	present	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	ccomp	_	_
26	at	at	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	feast	feast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	25	punct	_	_
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | past | We | such excellent dinner |  |  | yesterday |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dinner=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a old mouse of the female sex |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **is** | past · perfect |  |  |  | the feast |  | to another; present *property* | 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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