---
title: I can laugh or cry, according to circumstances. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: I can laugh or cry, according to circumstances. Who acts: I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Mail-coach Passengers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Mail-coach Passengers, sentence 45

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I can laugh or cry, according to circumstances.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** laugh, cry, accord

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Mail-coach Passengers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg27200:82:45
# text = I can laugh or cry, according to circumstances.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	according	accord	VERB	VBG	ExtPos=ADP|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	case	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	fixed	_	_
9	circumstances	circumstance	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | can | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | accord circumstances | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **accord** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent |

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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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