---
title: They say he took his wife from chalk; I shall be delighted to see hi… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They say he took his wife from chalk; I shall be delighted to see him again. Who acts: curtains, king, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Elfin Hill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/31/35/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Elfin Hill](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/31/) / 35

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Elfin Hill, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They say he took his wife from chalk; I shall be delighted to see him again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** curtains, king, I · **What happens:** say, take, be, see · **To what, where:** wife, chalk, king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Elfin Hill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (curtains, king, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:31:35
# text = They say he took his wife from chalk; I shall be delighted to see him again.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	chalk	chalk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
13	delighted	delighted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	again	again	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | curtains *= curtain* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **take** | past | king | king's wife |  | chalk |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent wife=Theme from chalk=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **is** | shall | I |  |  |  |  | delighted *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **see** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | king |  |  | again |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/31/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/31/36/)
- ↑ back to [The Elfin Hill](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/31/)