---
title: He asked her what was the matter; but what she said he could not und… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked her what was the matter; but what she said he could not understand. Who acts: Ib, girl. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, sentence 176

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He asked her what was the matter; but what she said he could not understand.

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**Who acts:** Ib, girl · **What happens:** ask, say, not understand · **To what, where:** girl · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ib, girl), 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:pg27200:51:176
# text = He asked her what was the matter; but what she said he could not understand.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	obj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	parataxis	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	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 | Ib |  | girl |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | girl |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **understand** | could | Ib |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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