---
title: The astonished counsellor asked what it all meant, and who the gentl… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The astonished counsellor asked what it all meant, and who the gentleman might be. Who acts: astonished counsellor, person. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor, sentence 14

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The astonished counsellor asked what it all meant, and who the gentleman might be.

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**Who acts:** astonished counsellor, person · **What happens:** ask, mean, be

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (astonished counsellor, person), 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:pg27200:41:14
# text = The astonished counsellor asked what it all meant, and who the gentleman might be.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	counsellor	counsellor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	all	all	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the astonished counsellor |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent what=Recipient |
| 2 | **mean** | past | person |  |  |  |  | all *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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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