---
title: "Is that a hill?" said the youngest of the boys, pointing to the elf… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Is that a hill?" said the youngest of the boys, pointing to the elf hill, "we should call it a hole in Norway." Who acts: hill, we. 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 49

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"Is that a hill?" said the youngest of the boys, pointing to the elf hill, "we should call it a hole in Norway."

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**Who acts:** hill, we · **What happens:** be, point, call · **To what, where:** elf hill, hill · **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 (hill, we), 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:pg27200:31:49
# text = "Is that a hill?" said the youngest of the boys, pointing to the elf hill, "we should call it a hole in Norway."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	8	ccomp	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	pointing	point	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	elf	elf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	xcomp	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	Norway	Norway	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *speech: assert* | present | a hill |  |  |  |  | say *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **point** | gerund | a hill *not said here* |  | the elf hill |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to hill=Recipient |
| 3 | **call** *in a quote* | should | we | hill |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |

<!-- .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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