---
title: Then he shook his head and said, "It cannot possibly be the bishop h… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he shook his head and said, "It cannot possibly be the bishop himself." Who acts: gentleman, head. 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 17

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Then he shook his head and said, "It cannot possibly be the bishop himself."

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**Who acts:** gentleman, head · **What happens:** shake, say, not be · **To what, where:** head, bishop · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (gentleman, head), 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:pg27200:41:17
# text = Then he shook his head and said, "It cannot possibly be the bishop himself."
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
13	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	bishop	bishop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	_
17	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	16	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | gentleman | gentleman's head |  |  | then |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | gentleman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | can | head | the bishop |  |  |  | gentleman *nmod:unmarked*; possibly *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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