---
title: "I may as well say that as anything," said John. " — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "I may as well say that as anything," said John. " Who acts: John. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 3, sentence 9

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"I may as well say that as anything," said John. "

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**Who acts:** John · **What happens:** say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (John), 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:pg27200:198:9
# text = "I may as well say that as anything," said John. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	6	cc	_	_
5	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	fixed	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
13	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | may | John |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | John |  |  |  |  | as anything | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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