---
title: The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary. Who acts: sisters, savages. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/27/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Orange Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/) / [Opening, part 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/27/) / 3

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 27, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sisters, savages · **What happens:** be, not see · **To what, where:** savages, missionary

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sisters, savages), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3027:27:3
# text = The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	savages	savage	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
5	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	missionary	missionary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the sisters | savages |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **see** | past · perfect | savages | a missionary |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer missionary=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/27/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/27/4/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/27/)