---
title: "When will Spring come?" asked the sparrows, "for we shall have bett… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "When will Spring come?" asked the sparrows, "for we shall have better times then, and a better rule. Who acts: Spring, sparrows, we. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of the Year, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/214/151/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Story of the Year, sentence 151

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"When will Spring come?" asked the sparrows, "for we shall have better times then, and a better rule.

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**Who acts:** Spring, sparrows, we · **What happens:** come, ask, have · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of the Year. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Spring, sparrows, 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:pg27200:214:151
# text = "When will Spring come?" asked the sparrows, "for we shall have better times then, and a better rule.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	Spring	Spring	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
17	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
18	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
19	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	24	amod	_	_
24	rule	rule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** *in a quote* | future | Spring |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the sparrows |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | shall | we |  |  |  | then; time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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