---
title: It was such a great fault to doubt Babette's truth--it was most abom… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was such a great fault to doubt Babette's truth--it was most abominable of him. Who acts: confession. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, XIII. At the Mill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, XIII. At the Mill, sentence 21

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It was such a great fault to doubt Babette's truth--it was most abominable of him.

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**Who acts:** confession · **What happens:** be, doubt · **To what, where:** great fault, truth

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, XIII. At the Mill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (confession), 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:pg27200:64:21
# text = It was such a great fault to doubt Babette's truth--it was most abominable of him.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	6	det:predet	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	fault	fault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	doubt	doubt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	Babette	Babette	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	's	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	16	advmod	_	_
16	abominable	abominable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | confession | such great fault |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **doubt** | to-infinitive |  | Babette's truth |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent truth=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | confession |  |  |  |  | of Rudy; abominable *property* | tree rules |

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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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