---
title: “I am the king of the wild ducks, whose life you spared, and now it… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I am the king of the wild ducks, whose life you spared, and now it is my turn to save yours.” Who acts: bird, life, ring. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/21/57/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 57

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“I am the king of the wild ducks, whose life you spared, and now it is my turn to save yours.”

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**Who acts:** bird, life, ring · **What happens:** be, spare, save · **To what, where:** king, turn, yours

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird, life, ring), 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:pg2435:21:57
# text = “I am the king of the wild ducks, whose life you spared, and now it is my turn to save yours.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	wild	wild	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	spared	spare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	21	advmod	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	turn	turn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl	_	_
24	yours	your	PRON	PRP	Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	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 | the bird *= bird* | the king |  |  |  | of the wild ducks | tree rules |
| 2 | **spare** *in a quote* | past | life |  |  |  |  |  | vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | ring | my turn |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **save** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | life *not said here* | yours |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent your=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 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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