---
title: They say he was a very learned man, a great favourite with the princ… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They say he was a very learned man, a great favourite with the princes and princesses, and was invited to all court festivities. Who acts: grandfather, baron. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Everything in the Right Place, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Everything in the Right Place, sentence 81

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They say he was a very learned man, a great favourite with the princes and princesses, and was invited to all court festivities.

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**Who acts:** grandfather, baron · **What happens:** say, be, invite · **To what, where:** learned man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Everything in the Right Place. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (grandfather, baron), 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:pg27200:155:81
# text = They say he was a very learned man, a great favourite with the princes and princesses, and was invited to all court festivities.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	learned	learned	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	favourite	favourite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	princes	prince	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	princesses	princess	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	invited	invite	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	25	det	_	_
24	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	_
25	festivities	festivity	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | grandfather |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | baron | a learned man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **invite** | past · passive | grandfather *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to all court festivities | vn promote-102 «NP V S\_ING» |

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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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