---
title: "But may we not punish those naughty boys?" asked the young storks. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "But may we not punish those naughty boys?" asked the young storks. Who acts: we, young storks. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Storks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Storks, sentence 65

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"But may we not punish those naughty boys?" asked the young storks.

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**Who acts:** we, young storks · **What happens:** not punish, ask · **To what, where:** naughty boys · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Storks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, young storks), 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:pg27200:183:65
# text = "But may we not punish those naughty boys?" asked the young storks.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	punish	punish	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
7	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
8	naughty	naughty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	storks	stork	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **punish** *in a quote* | may | we | that naughty boys |  |  |  |  | vn prosecute-33.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Patient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the young storks |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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