---
title: But at these words the maid shook her head, and answered gently: — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But at these words the maid shook her head, and answered gently: Who acts: maid. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 10, sentence 119

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But at these words the maid shook her head, and answered gently:

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**Who acts:** maid · **What happens:** shake, answer · **To what, where:** head, words

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (maid), 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:pg3027:10:119
# text = But at these words the maid shook her head, and answered gently:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
13	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | the maid | maid's head |  | this words |  |  | vn funnel-9.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent head=Theme at word=Trajectory |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  | gently *property* | 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:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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