---
title: "What--what were you--were you pleased to ob-" stammered he--and all… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "What--what were you--were you pleased to ob-" stammered he--and all the clerks wrote down, "pleased to ob-" Who acts: clerks. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, An Old Story Told Anew, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, An Old Story Told Anew, sentence 74

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"What--what were you--were you pleased to ob-" stammered he--and all the clerks wrote down, "pleased to ob-"

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**Who acts:** clerks · **What happens:** be, stammer, write down · **To what, where:** ob, Baa · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, An Old Story Told Anew. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (clerks), 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:pg27200:28:74
# text = "What--what were you--were you pleased to ob-" stammered he--and all the clerks wrote down, "pleased to ob-"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	parataxis	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	pleased	pleased	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	ob	ob	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	_
15	stammered	stammer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	21	det:predet	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	clerks	clerk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
22	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
23	down	down	ADP	RP	_	22	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	pleased	pleased	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	advcl	_	_
27	to	to	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	ob	ob	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	28	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | ob |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  | pleased *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **stammer** *speech: other* | past |  | Baa | ob |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Topic to ob=Recipient |
| 4 | **write down** | past | all clerks |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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