---
title: "What odd figures!" thought he; "they must be returning from some ma… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "What odd figures!" thought he; "they must be returning from some masquerade." Who acts: odd figures, figures. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/41/9/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [What Happened to the Counsellor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/41/) / 9

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What Happened to the Counsellor, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"What odd figures!" thought he; "they must be returning from some masquerade."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** odd figures, figures · **What happens:** think, return · **To what, where:** moon, masquerade · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (odd figures, figures), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:41:9
# text = "What odd figures!" thought he; "they must be returning from some masquerade."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
3	odd	odd	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	figures	figure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux	_	_
14	returning	return	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	ccomp	_	_
15	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	17	det	_	_
17	masquerade	masquerade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | odd figures | moon |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **return** *in a quote* | must · progressive | figures *= figure* |  |  | some masquerade |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from masquerade=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/41/8/)
- next →: [sentence 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/41/10/)
- ↑ back to [What Happened to the Counsellor](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/41/)