---
title: 'I will beware,' answered the buffalo; and, patting his head, the gi… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'I will beware,' answered the buffalo; and, patting his head, the girl left him. Who acts: I, girl. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, 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/pg3027/21/44/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 21, sentence 44

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'I will beware,' answered the buffalo; and, patting his head, the girl left him.

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**Who acts:** I, girl · **What happens:** beware, answer, pat, leave · **To what, where:** buffalo, head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, 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 (I, girl), 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:pg3027:21:44
# text = 'I will beware,' answered the buffalo; and, patting his head, the girl left him.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	beware	beware	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	patting	pat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	advcl	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beware** | future | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  | the buffalo |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **pat** | gerund | the girl *not said here* | buffalo's head |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Experiencer |
| 4 | **leave** | past | the girl | buffalo |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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