---
title: “I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb. — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The False Collar, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The False Collar, sentence 44

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“I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb.

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**What happens:** oblige, ask · **To what, where:** scissors, hair comb

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The False Collar. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg1597:22:44
# text = “I shall now be obliged to ask the hair-comb.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	obliged	oblige	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	comb	comb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **oblige** *in a quote* | shall · passive |  | the scissors *= scissors* |  |  | now |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | the hair comb |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent comb=Recipient |

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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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