---
title: The prince asked her who she was, and where she came from, and she l… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The prince asked her who she was, and where she came from, and she looked at him mildly and sorrowfully with her deep blue eyes; but she could not speak. Who acts: prince, sun. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, with its dependency t
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/43/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Little Mermaid, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/) / 43

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The prince asked her who she was, and where she came from, and she looked at him mildly and sorrowfully with her deep blue eyes; but she could not speak.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, sun · **What happens:** ask, come, look, not speak · **To what, where:** sun · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, sun), 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:pg27200:77:43
# text = The prince asked her who she was, and where she came from, and she looked at him mildly and sorrowfully with her deep blue eyes; but she could not speak.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	3	obj	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	12	advmod	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	from	from	ADP	IN	_	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	mildly	mildly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	sorrowfully	sorrowfully	ADV	RB	_	20	conj	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
24	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
25	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
26	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	33	punct	_	_
29	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
30	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	nsubj	_	_
31	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
32	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	33	advmod	_	_
33	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the prince |  | sun |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | past | sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | past | sun |  |  |  |  | at prince; with sun's deep blue eyes; mildly *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | could | sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/42/)
- next →: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/44/)
- ↑ back to [The Little Mermaid, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/)