---
title: "'I think it highly improper,' said the tea-kettle, who was kitchen… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "'I think it highly improper,' said the tea-kettle, who was kitchen singer, and half-brother to the tea-urn, 'that a rich foreign bird should be listened to here. Who acts: I, nightingale, tea kettle. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk, with it
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flying Trunk, sentence 72

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"'I think it highly improper,' said the tea-kettle, who was kitchen singer, and half-brother to the tea-urn, 'that a rich foreign bird should be listened to here.

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**Who acts:** I, nightingale, tea kettle · **What happens:** think, improper, say, be, listen · **To what, where:** tea kettle, kitchen singer, rich foreign bird · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, nightingale, tea kettle), 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:pg27200:35:72
# text = "'I think it highly improper,' said the tea-kettle, who was kitchen singer, and half-brother to the tea-urn, 'that a rich foreign bird should be listened to here.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	highly	highly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	improper	improper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	tea	tea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	kettle	kettle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	singer	singer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
22	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	24	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
27	tea	tea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	27	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	urn	urn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
31	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	39	mark	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
34	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
35	foreign	foreign	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	nsubj:pass	_	_
37	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	39	aux	_	_
38	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	39	aux:pass	_	_
39	listened	listen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	ccomp	_	_
40	to	to	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
41	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	39	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **improper** *in a quote* |  | nightingale |  |  |  |  | highly *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past |  | the tea kettle and kitchen singer |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | the tea kettle and kitchen singer | kitchen singer |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **listen** *in a quote* | should · passive |  | a rich foreign bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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