---
title: But the king could not tell her; and only managed to gasp out: 'My s… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the king could not tell her; and only managed to gasp out: 'My shoe! my shoe!' Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37, 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/pg3027/37/62/)

<!-- 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 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/37/) / 62

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 37, sentence 62

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the king could not tell her; and only managed to gasp out: 'My shoe! my shoe!'

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** not tell, manage, gasp out · **To what, where:** shoe, princess · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg3027:37:62
# text = But the king could not tell her; and only managed to gasp out: 'My shoe! my shoe!'
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	only	only	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	managed	manage	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	gasp	gasp	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	out	out	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
16	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	shoe	shoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	shoe	shoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | could | the king | My shoe | princess |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent she=Recipient shoe=Topic |
| 2 | **manage** | past | the king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **gasp out** | to-infinitive | the king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/37/61/)
- next →: [sentence 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/37/63/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/37/)