---
title: This is just what he ought to have said at first. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: This is just what he ought to have said at first. Who acts: This. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Eventful Moment--a Most Unusual Journey, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Eventful Moment--a Most Unusual Journey, sentence 25

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This is just what he ought to have said at first.

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**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Eventful Moment--a Most Unusual Journey. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This), 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:pg27200:43:25
# text = This is just what he ought to have said at first.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	just	just	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
8	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | This |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive · perfect | This *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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