---
title: 'If it please your majesty, the Bird of Truth will explain that hers… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'If it please your majesty, the Bird of Truth will explain that herself,' answered the boy. Who acts: Bird. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 34, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 34, sentence 5

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'If it please your majesty, the Bird of Truth will explain that herself,' answered the boy.

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**Who acts:** Bird · **What happens:** majesty, explain, answer · **To what, where:** boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 34. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Bird), 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:pg3027:34:5
# text = 'If it please your majesty, the Bird of Truth will explain that herself,' answered the boy.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	please	please	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	_
5	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	majesty	majesty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Bird	Bird	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	Truth	Truth	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
12	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
14	that	that	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
18	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **majesty** *a condition, not said to happen* |  | Bird |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **explain** *speech: assert* | future | the Bird of Truth |  |  |  |  | that Truth | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | the boy |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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