---
title: We could do without them very well, so long as we only keep frogs an… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: We could do without them very well, so long as we only keep frogs and earth-worms." Who acts: We. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Toad, sentence 152

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We could do without them very well, so long as we only keep frogs and earth-worms."

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**Who acts:** We · **What happens:** do, keep · **To what, where:** frogs

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We), 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:pg27200:194:152
# text = We could do without them very well, so long as we only keep frogs and earth-worms."
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	without	without	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	keep	keep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
15	frogs	frog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	worms	worm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | could | We |  |  |  |  | without men *= man*; long, well *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **keep** | present | we | frogs and earth worms |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent frog=Theme |

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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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