---
title: "Good day, emperor," he said, "could you not give me some employment… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Good day, emperor," he said, "could you not give me some employment at the court?" Who acts: emperor, you. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Swineherd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Swineherd, sentence 26

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"Good day, emperor," he said, "could you not give me some employment at the court?"

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**Who acts:** emperor, you · **What happens:** say, not give · **To what, where:** employment, emperor, court · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (emperor, 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:pg27200:188:26
# text = "Good day, emperor," he said, "could you not give me some employment at the court?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
18	employment	employment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | emperor |  |  |  | day |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **give** *in a quote* | could | you | some employment | emperor | the court |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent i=Recipient employment=Theme at court=Asset |

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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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