---
title: Can you raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks?" said the tom… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Can you raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks?" said the tom cat. " Who acts: you, tom cat. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, sentence 102

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Can you raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks?" said the tom cat. "

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**Who acts:** you, tom cat · **What happens:** raise, throw out, say · **To what, where:** back, sparks · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, tom cat), 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:pg27200:201:102
# text = Can you raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks?" said the tom cat. "
1	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	raise	raise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	purr	purr	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	throw	throw	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
12	out	out	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	sparks	spark	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	tom	tom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **raise** | can | you | your back |  |  |  | purr *obl* | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent back=Theme |
| 2 | **throw out** | infinitive | you *not said here* | sparks |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spark=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the tom cat |  |  |  |  |  | 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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