---
title: "You ought to be a countess," said the shirt collar; "but all I poss… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "You ought to be a countess," said the shirt collar; "but all I possess consists of a fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a comb. Who acts: You, countess. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shirt-collar, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shirt-collar, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"You ought to be a countess," said the shirt collar; "but all I possess consists of a fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a comb.

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**Who acts:** You, countess · **What happens:** be, say, possess · **To what, where:** countess, shirt collar · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shirt-collar. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, countess), 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:pg27200:168:30
# text = "You ought to be a countess," said the shirt collar; "but all I possess consists of a fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a comb.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	countess	countess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	shirt	shirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	collar	collar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	20	det	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	possess	possess	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
20	consists	consist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	parataxis	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
27	boot	boot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	27	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	jack	jack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	comb	comb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | ought | You | a countess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a countess | the shirt collar |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **possess** *in a quote* | present | a countess *= countess* |  |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |

<!-- .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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