---
title: Not a word spoken in this country could the bottle understand; it wa… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Not a word spoken in this country could the bottle understand; it was a language it had never before heard, and it is a great loss not to be able to understand a language. Who acts: country, language. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck, with its
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bottle Neck, sentence 82

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Not a word spoken in this country could the bottle understand; it was a language it had never before heard, and it is a great loss not to be able to understand a language.

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**Who acts:** country, language · **What happens:** speak, understand, be, hear, not be · **To what, where:** word, language, country, great loss · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (country, language), 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:pg27200:13:82
# text = Not a word spoken in this country could the bottle understand; it was a language it had never before heard, and it is a great loss not to be able to understand a language.
1	Not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
5	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
6	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
19	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	before	before	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
25	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	loss	loss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	_
29	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	32	advmod	_	_
30	to	to	PART	TO	_	32	mark	_	_
31	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	cop	_	_
32	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	advcl	_	_
33	to	to	PART	TO	_	34	mark	_	_
34	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	xcomp	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | participle |  | a word *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **understand** | could | this country |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** | past | country | a language |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **hear** | past · perfect · passive | a language *not said here* | country |  |  |  | before *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |
| 5 | **is a** | present | country | a great loss |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **not** **is** | to-infinitive | country *not said here* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **understand** | to-infinitive | country *not said here* | a language |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer language=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

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**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.

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