---
title: “How canst thou talk so?” said the learned man. — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “How canst thou talk so?” said the learned man. Who acts: thou, learned man. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shadow, sentence 88

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“How canst thou talk so?” said the learned man.

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**Who acts:** thou, learned man · **What happens:** talk, say, learn · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thou, learned man), 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:pg1597:23:88
# text = “How canst thou talk so?” said the learned man.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	canst	can	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	5	nsubj	_	_
5	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	parataxis	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	learned	learn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **talk** *in a quote* | can | thou |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the learned man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **learn** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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