---
title: “Now, prince,” said the magpie, “the three bulrushes are behind that… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Now, prince,” said the magpie, “the three bulrushes are behind that wall.” Who acts: prince, three bulrushes. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 54

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“Now, prince,” said the magpie, “the three bulrushes are behind that wall.”

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**Who acts:** prince, three bulrushes · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** magpie, wall · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, three bulrushes), 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:pg2435:1:54
# text = “Now, prince,” said the magpie, “the three bulrushes are behind that wall.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	magpie	magpie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	bulrushes	bulrush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
15	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | prince | the magpie |  |  | now |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent magpie=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the three bulrushes |  |  | that wall |  |  | tree rules |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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