---
title: “Who should know better than I?” said the animal; and his eyes rolle… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Who should know better than I?” said the animal; and his eyes rolled in his head. Who acts: animal, eyes. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 4, sentence 64

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“Who should know better than I?” said the animal; and his eyes rolled in his head.

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**Who acts:** animal, eyes · **What happens:** know, say, roll · **To what, where:** head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, 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 (animal, eyes), 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:pg1597:14:64
# text = “Who should know better than I?” said the animal; and his eyes rolled in his head.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
5	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
17	rolled	roll	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | should |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the animal |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **roll** | past | reindeer's eyes |  |  | reindeer's head |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in head=Trajectory |

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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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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