---
title: But whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, th… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no one could say with certainty. Who acts: sound, one. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Bell, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Bell, sentence 16

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But whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no one could say with certainty.

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**Who acts:** sound, one · **What happens:** come, say · **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 Bell. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sound, one), 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:pg1597:18:16
# text = But whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no one could say with certainty.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	hollow	hollow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	17	det	_	_
17	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	certainty	certainty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the sound |  |  | One's head or the hollow tree |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from head=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | could | no one |  |  |  |  | with certainty | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent with certainty=Manner |

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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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