---
title: "What tricks have you been playing?" said the old goblin. " — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "What tricks have you been playing?" said the old goblin. " Who acts: old goblin. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Elfin Hill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Elfin Hill, sentence 104

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"What tricks have you been playing?" said the old goblin. "

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**Who acts:** old goblin · **What happens:** play, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Elfin Hill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old goblin), 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:pg27200:31:104
# text = "What tricks have you been playing?" said the old goblin. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
3	tricks	trick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	aux	_	_
7	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	goblin	goblin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** *in a quote* | present · perfect · progressive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the old goblin |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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