---
title: I think these must have been the trees; I assure you they were state… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I think these must have been the trees; I assure you they were stately, very stately." Who acts: I, swallows. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree, 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/pg27200/33/21/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Fir Tree, sentence 21

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I think these must have been the trees; I assure you they were stately, very stately."

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**Who acts:** I, swallows · **What happens:** think, be, assure · **To what, where:** these, trees, you

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, swallows), 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:pg27200:33:21
# text = I think these must have been the trees; I assure you they were stately, very stately."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	2	obj	_	_
4	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	cop	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	assure	assure	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	stately	stately	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	stately	stately	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | present | I | these |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot this=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | must · perfect |  | the trees |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **assure** | present | I |  | you |  |  | stately *property* | vn advise-37.9 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 4 | **is** | past | swallows *= swallow* |  |  |  |  | stately *property* | tree rules |

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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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