---
title: “Sire, it is so simple I am almost ashamed to mention it. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Sire, it is so simple I am almost ashamed to mention it. Who acts: Sire, king. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg2435/4/107/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 107

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“Sire, it is so simple I am almost ashamed to mention it.

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**Who acts:** Sire, king · **What happens:** be, mention · **To what, where:** sire

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sire, king), 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:pg2435:4:107
# text = “Sire, it is so simple I am almost ashamed to mention it.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sire	sire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	ashamed	ashamed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	acl:relcl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	mention	mention	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Sire |  |  |  |  | simple *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the king *= king* |  |  |  |  | almost, ashamed *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **mention** *speech: other* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the king *= king* *not said here* | sire |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent it=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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