---
title: 'Surely I, good fisher as I am, can catch him,' said Covan son of Go… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Surely I, good fisher as I am, can catch him,' said Covan son of Gorla. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 31, sentence 41

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'Surely I, good fisher as I am, can catch him,' said Covan son of Gorla.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** catch, say · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, 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 (I), 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:pg3027:31:41
# text = 'Surely I, good fisher as I am, can catch him,' said Covan son of Gorla.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	fisher	fisher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	Covan	Covan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	Gorla	Gorla	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | can | I *not said here* | man |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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