---
title: “No,” answered Grettel, “we should be too heavy a load for the duck:… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “No,” answered Grettel, “we should be too heavy a load for the duck: she shall carry us across separately.” Who acts: Grettel, we, duck. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 126

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“No,” answered Grettel, “we should be too heavy a load for the duck: she shall carry us across separately.”

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**Who acts:** Grettel, we, duck · **What happens:** answer, be, carry · **To what, where:** us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Grettel, we, duck), 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:pg503:35:126
# text = “No,” answered Grettel, “we should be too heavy a load for the duck: she shall carry us across separately.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Grettel	Grettel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
12	too	too	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	load	load	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
20	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
23	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	across	across	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	separately	separately	ADV	RB	_	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Grettel |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | should | we |  |  |  |  | for the duck; heavy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **carry** *in a quote* | shall | duck | us |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Theme |

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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:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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