---
title: Mother says you can tell a fairy tale about anything you look at or… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Mother says you can tell a fairy tale about anything you look at or touch." Who acts: Mother, you. 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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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Elder-tree Mother, sentence 15

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Mother says you can tell a fairy tale about anything you look at or touch."

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**Who acts:** Mother, you · **What happens:** say, tell, look · **To what, where:** fairy tale · **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 (Mother, you), 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:pg27200:72:15
# text = Mother says you can tell a fairy tale about anything you look at or touch."
1	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	about	about	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	nmod	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	look	look	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	touch	touch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	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 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can | you | a fairy tale |  |  |  | about anything | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent tale=Recipient about anything=Topic |
| 3 | **look** | present | you |  |  |  |  | at touch | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at touch=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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