---
title: "Ho! ho!" said the old goblin, "is that what she means? — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Ho! ho!" said the old goblin, "is that what she means? Who acts: Ho ho, ho. 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 84

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"Ho! ho!" said the old goblin, "is that what she means?

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**Who acts:** Ho ho, ho · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** old goblin · **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 (Ho ho, ho), 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:pg27200:31:84
# text = "Ho! ho!" said the old goblin, "is that what she means?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ho	Ho	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	ho	ho	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	goblin	goblin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	obj	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Ho ho | the old goblin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | ho |  |  |  |  | mean *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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