---
title: But the garter was naturally shy, and did not know how to answer suc… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the garter was naturally shy, and did not know how to answer such a question. Who acts: garter. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shirt-collar, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shirt-collar, sentence 7

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But the garter was naturally shy, and did not know how to answer such a question.

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**Who acts:** garter · **What happens:** be, not know, answer · **To what, where:** question

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shirt-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), 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:pg27200:168:7
# text = But the garter was naturally shy, and did not know how to answer such a question.
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	naturally	naturally	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	shy	shy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	know	know	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
12	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
15	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	17	det:predet	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	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 |  |  |  |  | naturally, shy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past · do-support |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  | such question |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent question=Eventuality |

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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:** «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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