---
title: Sadly they shake their tops, As if they knew of the robbery." — Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains · tree and pragmatics
description: Sadly they shake their tops, As if they knew of the robbery." Who acts: Franks. A sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains, A Historical Tale., part 8, sentence 119

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Sadly they shake their tops, As if they knew of the robbery."

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**Who acts:** Franks · **What happens:** shake, know · **To what, where:** tops

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This is a sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Franks), 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:pg74323:25:119
# text = Sadly they shake their tops, As if they knew of the robbery."
1	Sadly	sadly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	shake	shake	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tops	top	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	robbery	robbery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | present | Franks *= frank* | Franks's tops |  |  |  | sadly *property* | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent top=Patient |
| 2 | **know** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | Franks *= frank* |  |  |  |  | of the robbery | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of robbery=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:** «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Project Gutenberg book 74323 (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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