---
title: Supposing that the shrinking of his nose had only been an accident b… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Supposing that the shrinking of his nose had only been an accident before! Who acts: shrinking. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 12, 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/pg2435/12/21/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 21

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Supposing that the shrinking of his nose had only been an accident before!

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**Who acts:** shrinking · **What happens:** suppose, have, be, shrink · **To what, where:** accident, nose

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shrinking), 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:pg2435:12:21
# text = Supposing that the shrinking of his nose had only been an accident before!
1	Supposing	suppose	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
2	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	shrinking	shrinking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	advcl	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
10	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	accident	accident	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	before	before	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suppose** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **have** | past | the shrinking of shrinking's nose |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | participle |  | a accident |  |  |  | before *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **shrink** |  |  | shrinking's nose |  |  |  |  | nom shrinking «event transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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