---
title: “That is the very thing that nobody can make out,” said his mother. — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “That is the very thing that nobody can make out,” said his mother. Who acts: That, mother. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/8/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Andersen's Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/) / [The Elderbush](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/) / 8

# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Elderbush, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“That is the very thing that nobody can make out,” said his mother.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** That, mother · **What happens:** be, make out, say · **To what, where:** thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, mother), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg1597:17:8
# text = “That is the very thing that nobody can make out,” said his mother.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	ccomp	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
8	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
11	out	out	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | That | the thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **make out** *in a quote* | can | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | man's mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Elderbush](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/17/)