---
title: They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of the watchman should understand it. Who acts: description, nobody, soul. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/6/107/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shoes of Fortune, part 2, sentence 107

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They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of the watchman should understand it.

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**Who acts:** description, nobody, soul · **What happens:** have, expect, understand · **To what, where:** language

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (description, nobody, soul), 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:pg1597:6:107
# text = They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of the watchman should understand it.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	too	too	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
9	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	expect	expect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	soul	soul	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	watchman	watchman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | description | a language |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent language=Patient |
| 2 | **expect** | can | nobody |  |  |  |  | surely *property* | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **understand** | should | the soul of the watchman | language |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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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