---
title: The only human speech which Polly could utter, and which she sometim… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The only human speech which Polly could utter, and which she sometimes chattered forth most comically, was "Now let us be men." Who acts: only human speech, Polly, men. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, sentence 109

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The only human speech which Polly could utter, and which she sometimes chattered forth most comically, was "Now let us be men."

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**Who acts:** only human speech, Polly, men · **What happens:** utter, chatter, be · **To what, where:** only human speech · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (only human speech, Polly, men), 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:pg27200:44:109
# text = The only human speech which Polly could utter, and which she sometimes chattered forth most comically, was "Now let us be men."
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
5	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
6	Polly	Polly	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	utter	utter	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	obj	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	14	advmod	_	_
14	chattered	chatter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	forth	forth	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	17	advmod	_	_
17	comically	comically	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	22	advmod	_	_
22	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
23	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	_
25	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **utter** *speech: other* | could | the only human speech |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **chatter** | past | Polly | the only human speech |  |  |  | comically, forth, sometimes *property* | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent which=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | past | the only human speech |  |  |  | now | let *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** *in a quote* | infinitive | men |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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