---
title: "Well, the Romans and Greeks used to call her a Dryad," said the old… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Well, the Romans and Greeks used to call her a Dryad," said the old man; "but we do not understand that. Who acts: Romans, old man, we. 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 25

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"Well, the Romans and Greeks used to call her a Dryad," said the old man; "but we do not understand that.

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**Who acts:** Romans, old man, we · **What happens:** use, call, say, not understand · **To what, where:** name, that · **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 (Romans, old man, we), 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:pg27200:72:25
# text = "Well, the Romans and Greeks used to call her a Dryad," said the old man; "but we do not understand that.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Romans	Roman	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	Greeks	Greek	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Dryad	Dryad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
24	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
25	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	parataxis	_	_
27	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** *in a quote* | past | the Romans and Greeks |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **call** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the Romans and Greeks *not said here* |  | name |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **understand** *in a quote* | present · do-support | we | that |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer that=Stimulus |

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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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