---
title: "He looks something like a flour-sack without any flour," said the m… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "He looks something like a flour-sack without any flour," said the miller, laughing at his own wit. Who acts: Chillon, miller. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, X. the Godmother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, X. the Godmother, sentence 41

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"He looks something like a flour-sack without any flour," said the miller, laughing at his own wit.

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**Who acts:** Chillon, miller · **What happens:** look, say, laugh · **To what, where:** something, own wit · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, X. the Godmother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Chillon, miller), 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:pg27200:61:41
# text = "He looks something like a flour-sack without any flour," said the miller, laughing at his own wit.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	looks	look	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	3	obj	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	flour	flour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
10	without	without	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	12	det	_	_
12	flour	flour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	miller	miller	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	advcl	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
22	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	wit	wit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** *in a quote* | present | Chillon | something |  |  |  | like a flour sack without any flour | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme something=Attribute |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the miller |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **laugh** | gerund | the miller *not said here* |  |  | Chillon's own wit |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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