---
title: No, they can cry; but to man alone is the power of laughter given. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: No, they can cry; but to man alone is the power of laughter given. Who acts: dog, man. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, sentence 137

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No, they can cry; but to man alone is the power of laughter given.

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**Who acts:** dog, man · **What happens:** cry, be, give · **To what, where:** power

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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 (dog, man), 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:pg27200:44:137
# text = No, they can cry; but to man alone is the power of laughter given.
1	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	TO	_	9	case	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	laughter	laughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	given	give	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | can | dog |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | man | the power |  |  |  | of laughter | tree rules |
| 3 | **give** | participle |  | the power *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn break\_down-45.8 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

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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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