---
title: “Why, who said anything about doing harm?” said the princess. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why, who said anything about doing harm?” said the princess. Who acts: princess. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg2435/31/14/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 14

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“Why, who said anything about doing harm?” said the princess.

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**Who acts:** princess · **What happens:** say, do · **To what, where:** anything, harm · **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 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (princess), 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:pg2435:31:14
# text = “Why, who said anything about doing harm?” said the princess.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
6	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	obj	_	_
7	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
8	doing	do	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
9	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past |  | anything |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent anything=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | gerund |  | harm |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent harm=Eventuality |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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