---
title: "May I never be whipped again," said the top, "if I am not telling y… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "May I never be whipped again," said the top, "if I am not telling you the truth." Who acts: top. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Top and Ball, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Top and Ball, sentence 15

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"May I never be whipped again," said the top, "if I am not telling you the truth."

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**Who acts:** top · **What happens:** not whip, say, not tell · **To what, where:** top, truth, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Top and Ball. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (top), 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:pg27200:195:15
# text = "May I never be whipped again," said the top, "if I am not telling you the truth."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	May	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	whipped	whip	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	ccomp	_	_
7	again	again	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	iobj	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **whip** *in a quote* | may · passive |  | the top *= top* |  |  | again |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: subject=Material |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the top |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present · progressive | the top *= top* | the truth | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient truth=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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