---
title: "May I see you paint?" asked the boy; "may I see you put the picture… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "May I see you paint?" asked the boy; "may I see you put the picture on this white canvas?" Who acts: boy, you, painter. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Metal Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Metal Pig, sentence 114

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"May I see you paint?" asked the boy; "may I see you put the picture on this white canvas?"

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**Who acts:** boy, you, painter · **What happens:** see, paint, ask, put · **To what, where:** you, picture, white canvas · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Metal Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, you, painter), 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:pg27200:89:114
# text = "May I see you paint?" asked the boy; "may I see you put the picture on this white canvas?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	May	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	paint	paint	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	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	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	det	_	_
23	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	canvas	canvas	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | may | the boy *= boy* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **paint** *in a quote* | infinitive | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **see** *in a quote* | may | the painter *= painter* | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **put** *in a quote* | infinitive | you *not said here* | the picture |  | this white canvas |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent picture=Theme on canvas=Destination |

<!-- .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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