---
title: "Then will you write a few words to her?" said the boatman. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Then will you write a few words to her?" said the boatman. Who acts: you, boatman. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, sentence 128

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"Then will you write a few words to her?" said the boatman.

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**Who acts:** you, boatman · **What happens:** write, say · **To what, where:** few words, Christina · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, boatman), 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:pg27200:51:128
# text = "Then will you write a few words to her?" said the boatman.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	boatman	boatman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** *in a quote* | future | you | a few words | Christina |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent word=Topic to she=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the boatman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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