---
title: But the more he talked with the boatmen the less they could understa… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the more he talked with the boatmen the less they could understand each other. Who acts: bridge, lamps. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor, sentence 25

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But the more he talked with the boatmen the less they could understand each other.

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**Who acts:** bridge, lamps · **What happens:** talk, understand · **To what, where:** each

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bridge, lamps), 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:pg27200:41:25
# text = But the more he talked with the boatmen the less they could understand each other.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	boatmen	boatman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	less	less	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
14	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	13	obj	_	_
15	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **talk** | past | bridge |  |  |  |  | with the boatmen | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with boatman=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **understand** | could | lamps *= lamp* | each |  |  |  | less *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer each=Stimulus |

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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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