---
title: This must be a great dog,' they said, and began to stroke him. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: This must be a great dog,' they said, and began to stroke him. Who acts: This, children. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Thirtieth Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/121/11/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [Thirtieth Evening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/121/) / 11

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Thirtieth Evening, sentence 11

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
This must be a great dog,' they said, and began to stroke him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** This, children · **What happens:** be, say, begin, stroke · **To what, where:** great dog, Moon · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Thirtieth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, children), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:121:11
# text = This must be a great dog,' they said, and began to stroke him.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	stroke	stroke	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | must | This | a great dog |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **begin** | past | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **stroke** | to-infinitive | children *= child* *not said here* | Moon |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Experiencer |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/121/10/)
- next →: [sentence 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/121/12/)
- ↑ back to [Thirtieth Evening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/121/)