---
title: No one could tell whether it was a mountain covered with forests and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: No one could tell whether it was a mountain covered with forests and full of caves, or whether it had been built. Who acts: one. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of a Mother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Story of a Mother, sentence 39

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No one could tell whether it was a mountain covered with forests and full of caves, or whether it had been built.

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**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** tell, cover, build · **To what, where:** lake · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Story of a Mother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg27200:185:39
# text = No one could tell whether it was a mountain covered with forests and full of caves, or whether it had been built.
1	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	det	_	_
2	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	mountain	mountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	ccomp	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	forests	forest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	caves	cave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	aux:pass	_	_
23	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | no one |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **cover** | past · passive |  | lake |  |  |  | with forests | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with forest=Theme |
| 3 | **build** | past · perfect · passive |  | lake |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |

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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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