---
title: Heaven knows what he said; but we may be allowed to guess at it. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Heaven knows what he said; but we may be allowed to guess at it. Who acts: Heaven, we. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Golden Treasure, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Golden Treasure, sentence 134

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Heaven knows what he said; but we may be allowed to guess at it.

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**Who acts:** Heaven, we · **What happens:** know, say, allow, guess · **To what, where:** we, hand · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Golden Treasure. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Heaven, 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:pg27200:39:134
# text = Heaven knows what he said; but we may be allowed to guess at it.
1	Heaven	Heaven	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	knows	know	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	allowed	allow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	guess	guess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | present | Heaven |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | heaven |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **allow** | may · passive |  | we |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP S»: subject=Beneficiary clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **guess** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | we *not said here* |  |  | hand |  |  | vn estimate-34.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.value»: agent=Agent at it=Value |

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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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