---
title: He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen. Who acts: priest, this. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2, sentence 63

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He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen.

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**Who acts:** priest, this · **What happens:** give, retain, not happen · **To what, where:** soul, you, own

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (priest, this), 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:pg27200:76:63
# text = He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	soul	soul	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	retain	retain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	obj	_	_
12	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADV	9	advmod	_	_
13	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | would | priest | a soul | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent soul=Theme to you=Recipient |
| 2 | **retain** | infinitive | priest *not said here* | priest's own |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **happen** | can | this |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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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