---
title: He stayed, although he could not tell whether she had asked him to d… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He stayed, although he could not tell whether she had asked him to do so. Who acts: Knud, child. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 2, sentence 36

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He stayed, although he could not tell whether she had asked him to do so.

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**Who acts:** Knud, child · **What happens:** stay, not tell, ask, do · **To what, where:** Knud · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, 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 (Knud, child), 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:pg27200:203:36
# text = He stayed, although he could not tell whether she had asked him to do so.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stayed	stay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	although	although	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
9	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stay** | past | Knud |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | could | Knud |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past · perfect | child |  | Knud |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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