---
title: "Who can the strangers be?" asked the lizards; "what can the matter… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Who can the strangers be?" asked the lizards; "what can the matter be? Who acts: lizards. 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 9

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"Who can the strangers be?" asked the lizards; "what can the matter be?

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**Who acts:** lizards · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** matter · **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 (lizards), 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:pg27200:31:9
# text = "Who can the strangers be?" asked the lizards; "what can the matter be?
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	lizards	lizard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	18	obj	_	_
15	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	_
18	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **can** *in a quote* | can |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the lizards |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **can** *in a quote* | can | the lizards *not said here* | the matter |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |

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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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