---
title: I ought to tell you a story, but the worst of it is, I do not know a… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I ought to tell you a story, but the worst of it is, I do not know any more." Who acts: I, worst. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/72/13/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, sentence 13

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I ought to tell you a story, but the worst of it is, I do not know any more."

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**Who acts:** I, worst · **What happens:** tell, not be · **To what, where:** story, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, worst), 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:pg27200:72:13
# text = I ought to tell you a story, but the worst of it is, I do not know any more."
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	worst	bad	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	19	nsubj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
20	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	21	det	_	_
21	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | ought | I | a story | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient story=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is** | present · do-support | the worst |  |  |  |  | know *property* | tree rules |

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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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