---
title: "Ah, that is a very important question," replied the stork. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "Ah, that is a very important question," replied the stork. Who acts: that, important question. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6, sentence 102

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"Ah, that is a very important question," replied the stork.

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**Who acts:** that, important question · **What happens:** be, reply · **To what, where:** important question, stork · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, important question), 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:pg27200:88:102
# text = "Ah, that is a very important question," replied the stork.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	9	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	important	important	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	stork	stork	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | that | a important question |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | a important question | the stork |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent stork=Topic |

<!-- .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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