---
title: ‘Dear me!’ thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide, ‘I can s… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Dear me!’ thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide, ‘I can see nothing!’ Who acts: me, I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/6/20/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4).…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/6/) / 20

# The Yellow Fairy Book, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Dear me!’ thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide, ‘I can see nothing!’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** me, I · **What happens:** think, open, see · **To what, where:** old minister, eyes, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (me, I), 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:pg640:6:20
# text = ‘Dear me!’ thought the old minister, opening his eyes wide, ‘I can see nothing!’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	minister	minister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	opening	open	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	wide	wide	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | me | the old minister |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent minister=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 2 | **open** | gerund | me *not said here* | minister's eyes |  |  |  | wide *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location eye=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | can | I | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |

<!-- .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:** «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/6/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/6/21/)
- ↑ back to [Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/6/)