---
title: But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a stran… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange question to answer. Who acts: garter, name. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The False Collar, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/22/8/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The False Collar, sentence 8

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But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange question to answer.

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**Who acts:** garter, name · **What happens:** be, think, answer · **To what, where:** strange question · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The False Collar. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (garter, name), 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:pg1597:22:8
# text = But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange question to answer.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	garter	garter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	bashful	bashful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	modest	modest	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the garter |  |  |  |  | bashful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the garter *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the garter *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past | name | a strange question |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **answer** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the garter *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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