---
title: Neither did anxious mothers say so; for he bowed to them as pleasant… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Neither did anxious mothers say so; for he bowed to them as pleasantly as to the young girls. Who acts: anxious mothers, Rudy. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IV. Babette, sentence 6

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Neither did anxious mothers say so; for he bowed to them as pleasantly as to the young girls.

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**Who acts:** anxious mothers, Rudy · **What happens:** say, bow · **To what, where:** mothers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (anxious mothers, Rudy), 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:pg27200:55:6
# text = Neither did anxious mothers say so; for he bowed to them as pleasantly as to the young girls.
1	Neither	neither	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	anxious	anxious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	mothers	mother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	bowed	bow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	_
13	as	as	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	pleasantly	pleasantly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	19	case	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	fixed	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | anxious mothers |  |  |  |  | neither *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **bow** | past | Rudy |  | mothers *= mother* |  |  | pleasantly *property* | vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to they=Theme |

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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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