---
title: Nay, that is almost too improbable; and yet it is true. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Nay, that is almost too improbable; and yet it is true. Who acts: that, family. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/194/176/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Toad, sentence 176

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Nay, that is almost too improbable; and yet it is true.

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**Who acts:** that, family · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, family), 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:pg27200:194:176
# text = Nay, that is almost too improbable; and yet it is true.
1	Nay	nay	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	too	too	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	improbable	improbable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | almost, improbable *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | present | family |  |  |  | yet | true *property* | tree rules |

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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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