---
title: "I can give you nothing to do for me there," said the old woman; "bu… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "I can give you nothing to do for me there," said the old woman; "but you can give me your long black hair. Who acts: old woman, you. 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 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I can give you nothing to do for me there," said the old woman; "but you can give me your long black hair.

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**Who acts:** old woman, you · **What happens:** give, do, say · **To what, where:** nothing, you, long black hair, old woman · **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 (old woman, you), 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:pg27200:185:54
# text = "I can give you nothing to do for me there," said the old woman; "but you can give me your long black hair.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	_
11	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
24	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	iobj	_	_
25	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
26	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
27	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *in a quote* | can | the old woman *= woman* | nothing | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient nothing=Theme |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the old woman *= woman* *not said here* | nothing *not said here* |  | there |  | for the old woman *= woman* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **give** *in a quote* | can | you | your long black hair | the old woman *= woman* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient hair=Theme |

<!-- .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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