---
title: "Only tell me which way he has gone," said the mother; "tell me the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Only tell me which way he has gone," said the mother; "tell me the way, I will find him." Who acts: weight, mother. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of a Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Story of a Mother, sentence 16

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"Only tell me which way he has gone," said the mother; "tell me the way, I will find him."

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**Who acts:** weight, mother · **What happens:** tell, go, say, find · **To what, where:** way, mother, weight · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of a Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (weight, mother), 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:pg27200:185:16
# text = "Only tell me which way he has gone," said the mother; "tell me the way, I will find him."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	6	det	_	_
6	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	conj	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  | which way | the mother *= mother* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient way=Topic |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | present · perfect | weight | which way *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location way=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  | the way | the mother *= mother* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient way=Topic |
| 5 | **find** *in a quote* | future | the mother *= mother* | weight |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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