---
title: “Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles. Who acts: empty, old minister. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Emperor's New Clothes, sentence 31

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“Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles.

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**Who acts:** empty, old minister · **What happens:** be, reply, look · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (empty, old minister), 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:pg1597:2:31
# text = “Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	excellent	excellent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	minister	minister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	loom	loom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	through	through	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	spectacles	spectacle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | empty |  |  |  |  | excellent *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: express* | past | the old minister |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | the old minister *not said here* |  |  |  |  | through minister's spectacles; at the loom | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at loom=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:** «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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