---
title: "And perhaps break it off," said the mamma stork, "then what a sight… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "And perhaps break it off," said the mamma stork, "then what a sight you would be. Who acts: mamma stork. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2, sentence 78

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"And perhaps break it off," said the mamma stork, "then what a sight you would be.

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**Who acts:** mamma stork · **What happens:** break off, say · **To what, where:** story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, 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 (mamma stork), 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:pg27200:84:78
# text = "And perhaps break it off," said the mamma stork, "then what a sight you would be.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	off	off	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	mamma	mamma	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	stork	stork	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break off** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | story |  |  |  | perhaps *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the mamma stork |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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