---
title: "Had you not better first try to take down the moon? — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Had you not better first try to take down the moon? A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, VII. the Eagle's Nest, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, VII. the Eagle's Nest, sentence 6

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"Had you not better first try to take down the moon?

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**What happens:** have, take down · **To what, where:** you, moon

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, VII. the Eagle's Nest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg27200:58:6
# text = "Had you not better first try to take down the moon?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	amod	_	_
6	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	7	amod	_	_
7	try	try	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | past |  | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **take down** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | the moon |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent moon=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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