---
title: "But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is l… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is left for me?" Who acts: you, little mermaid. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 22

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"But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is left for me?"

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**Who acts:** you, little mermaid · **What happens:** take away, say, leave · **To what, where:** voice · **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 Mermaid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, little mermaid), 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:pg27200:77:22
# text = "But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is left for me?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	take	take	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
6	away	away	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	mermaid	mermaid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	ccomp	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take away** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | you | my voice |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent voice=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the little mermaid |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **leave** *in a quote* | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  | for the little mermaid *= mermaid* | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: subject=Theme for i=Recipient |

<!-- .note -->
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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