---
title: The courtiers slowly shook their heads and began to offer objections. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: The courtiers slowly shook their heads and began to offer objections. Who acts: courtiers. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 24, sentence 58

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The courtiers slowly shook their heads and began to offer objections.

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**Who acts:** courtiers · **What happens:** shake, begin, offer · **To what, where:** heads, objections

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (courtiers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:24:60
# text = The courtiers slowly shook their heads and began to offer objections.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	courtiers	courtier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	offer	offer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	objections	objection	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | the courtiers | courtiers's heads |  |  |  | slowly *property* | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the courtiers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **offer** | to-infinitive | the courtiers *not said here* | objections |  |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent objection=Theme |

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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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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