---
title: We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea b… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand. Who acts: We, nothing. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 3

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We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand.

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**Who acts:** We, nothing · **What happens:** not imagine, be

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, nothing), 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:pg27200:75:3
# text = We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand.
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	imagine	imagine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
8	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	nsubj	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	bare	bare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **imagine** | must | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | present | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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