---
title: To work and to lay eggs,' say they, and to provide for posterity, is… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: To work and to lay eggs,' say they, and to provide for posterity, is to live out your time properly;' and that they truly do. Who acts: eggs. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Second Mouse Had to Tell, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the Second Mouse Had to Tell, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
To work and to lay eggs,' say they, and to provide for posterity, is to live out your time properly;' and that they truly do.

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**Who acts:** eggs · **What happens:** work, lay, say, provide, be, do · **To what, where:** eggs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Second Mouse Had to Tell. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eggs), 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:pg27200:180:22
# text = To work and to lay eggs,' say they, and to provide for posterity, is to live out your time properly;' and that they truly do.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	work	work	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	lay	lay	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	_
9	say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	provide	provide	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	posterity	posterity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	live	live	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
21	out	out	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	_
22	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl:unmarked	_	_
24	properly	properly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
28	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
29	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
30	truly	truly	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **work** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lay** | to-infinitive |  | eggs |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent egg=Result |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive |  | eggs *= egg* |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent they=Topic |
| 4 | **provide** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | for posterity | vn fulfilling-13.4.1-2 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent for posterity=Recipient |
| 5 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  | time | live, properly *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **do** | present | eggs *= egg* |  |  |  |  | truly *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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