---
title: “That’s a good joke,” answered the little tailor, and unbuttoning hi… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “That’s a good joke,” answered the little tailor, and unbuttoning his coat he showed the giant the girdle. Who acts: That, good joke, joke. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“That’s a good joke,” answered the little tailor, and unbuttoning his coat he showed the giant the girdle.

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**Who acts:** That, good joke, joke · **What happens:** be, answer, unbutton, show · **To what, where:** good joke, little tailor, coat, girdle, giant · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, good joke, joke), 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:pg503:42:28
# text = “That’s a good joke,” answered the little tailor, and unbuttoning his coat he showed the giant the girdle.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	joke	joke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	tailor	tailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	unbuttoning	unbutton	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	csubj	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	coat	coat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	giant	giant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	girdle	girdle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | That | a good joke |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | a good joke |  | the little tailor |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent tailor=Eventuality |
| 3 | **unbutton** | gerund |  | tailor's coat |  |  |  |  | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent coat=Patient |
| 4 | **show** | past | joke | the girdle | the giant |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent giant=Recipient girdle=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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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