---
title: He spoke words of sheer lunacy, so that the General could hardly bel… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He spoke words of sheer lunacy, so that the General could hardly believe his own ears. Who acts: man, General. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, sentence 126

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He spoke words of sheer lunacy, so that the General could hardly believe his own ears.

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**Who acts:** man, General · **What happens:** speak, believe, word · **To what, where:** words, own ears, sheer lunacy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, 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 (man, General), 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:pg27200:147:126
# text = He spoke words of sheer lunacy, so that the General could hardly believe his own ears.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	sheer	sheer	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	lunacy	lunacy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	14	mark	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	fixed	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	General	General	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | man | words of sheer lunacy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **believe** | could | the General | man's own ears |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer ear=Stimulus |
| 3 | **word** |  |  | sheer lunacy |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** «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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