---
title: "Don't spoil my girls," said the mother; "and don't talk to them, pr… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Don't spoil my girls," said the mother; "and don't talk to them, pray, unless you have serious intentions." Who acts: you, mother. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Beetle Who Went on His Travels, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Beetle Who Went on His Travels, sentence 84

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"Don't spoil my girls," said the mother; "and don't talk to them, pray, unless you have serious intentions."

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**Who acts:** you, mother · **What happens:** not spoil, say, not talk, pray, have · **To what, where:** girls, serious intentions · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Beetle Who Went on His Travels. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, mother), 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:pg27200:8:84
# text = "Don't spoil my girls," said the mother; "and don't talk to them, pray, unless you have serious intentions."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	spoil	spoil	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	talk	talk	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	pray	pray	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
24	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
26	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	intentions	intention	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **spoil** *in a quote* | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* | my girls |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **talk** *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support | you *not said here* |  | girls *= girl* |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to they=Co-Agent |
| 4 | **pray** *in a quote* | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 5 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | you | serious intentions |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent intention=Patient |

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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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