---
title: “He will tell me,” answered the eldest princess; but the boy only sh… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “He will tell me,” answered the eldest princess; but the boy only shook his head. Who acts: king, eldest princess, boy. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7, 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/pg2435/7/6/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 6

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“He will tell me,” answered the eldest princess; but the boy only shook his head.

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**Who acts:** king, eldest princess, boy · **What happens:** tell, answer, shake · **To what, where:** eldest princess, head · **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 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, eldest princess, boy), 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:pg2435:7:6
# text = “He will tell me,” answered the eldest princess; but the boy only shook his head.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	11	amod	_	_
11	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	only	only	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | future | king |  | the eldest princess *= princess* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the eldest princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **shake** | past | the boy | king's head |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |

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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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