---
title: “That is of no consequence,” they answered. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “That is of no consequence,” they answered. Who acts: That, gardeners. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, 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/pg503/2/11/)

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 11

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“That is of no consequence,” they answered.

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**Who acts:** That, gardeners · **What happens:** be, answer · **To what, where:** consequence · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, gardeners), 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:pg503:2:11
# text = “That is of no consequence,” they answered.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	6	det	_	_
6	consequence	consequence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | That |  |  |  |  | of no consequence | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | gardeners *= gardener* | no consequence *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent consequence=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:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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