---
title: "What is the news at the mill?" asked the parlor-cat. " — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "What is the news at the mill?" asked the parlor-cat. " Who acts: news. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, VI. the Visit to the Mill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, VI. the Visit to the Mill, sentence 27

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"What is the news at the mill?" asked the parlor-cat. "

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**Who acts:** news · **What happens:** be, ask · **To what, where:** news, mill, parlor cat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, VI. the Visit to the Mill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (news), 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:pg27200:57:27
# text = "What is the news at the mill?" asked the parlor-cat. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	mill	mill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	parlor	parlor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | the news |  | the mill |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the news |  | the parlor cat |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent cat=Recipient |

<!-- .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.

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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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