---
title: Thou must sit behind me, not before me," said he. " — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Thou must sit behind me, not before me," said he. " Who acts: Thou, man. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 4, 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 4, sentence 25

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Thou must sit behind me, not before me," said he. "

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**Who acts:** Thou, man · **What happens:** sit, say · **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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Thou, man), 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:pg27200:86:25
# text = Thou must sit behind me, not before me," said he. "
1	Thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	3	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	before	before	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | must | Thou |  |  |  |  | behind me | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent behind i=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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