---
title: But her husband only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But her husband only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if he could not believe his own eyes. Who acts: husband. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water., sentence 61

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But her husband only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if he could not believe his own eyes.

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**Who acts:** husband · **What happens:** shake, shrug, not believe · **To what, where:** head, shoulders, own eyes

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband), 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:pg641:16:61
# text = But her husband only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if he could not believe his own eyes.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	shrugged	shrug	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	shoulders	shoulder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
13	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
19	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | luck's husband | husband's head |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 2 | **shrug** | past | luck's husband *not said here* | husband's shoulders |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shoulder=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **believe** | could | husband | husband's own eyes |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer eye=Stimulus |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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