---
title: "There may be black snails, no doubt," said the old snail; "black sn… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "There may be black snails, no doubt," said the old snail; "black snails without houses; but they are so vulgar and conceited too. Who acts: black snails, snails. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics o
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Happy Family, sentence 34

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"There may be black snails, no doubt," said the old snail; "black snails without houses; but they are so vulgar and conceited too.

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**Who acts:** black snails, snails · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** black snails, old snail · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (black snails, snails), 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:pg27200:48:34
# text = "There may be black snails, no doubt," said the old snail; "black snails without houses; but they are so vulgar and conceited too.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
3	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	snails	snail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	doubt	doubt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	snail	snail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	snails	snail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
20	without	without	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	27	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
24	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
25	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
26	so	so	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	vulgar	vulgar	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	parataxis	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	conceited	conceited	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	conj	_	_
30	too	too	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | black snails and no doubt |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | black snails and no doubt | the old snail |  |  |  | black snails without houses *obl* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | snails *= snail* |  |  |  |  | vulgar *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** *in a quote* |  | snails *= snail* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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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