---
title: I defy you to prove it,' answered Isuro boldly. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I defy you to prove it,' answered Isuro boldly. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 4, sentence 34

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I defy you to prove it,' answered Isuro boldly.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** defy, prove, answer · **To what, where:** you, dare, Isuro

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 4. 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:pg3027:4:34
# text = I defy you to prove it,' answered Isuro boldly.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	defy	defy	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	prove	prove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
10	Isuro	Isuro	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	boldly	boldly	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **defy** | present | I | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **prove** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | dare |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | Isuro |  |  | boldly *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent isuro=Eventuality |

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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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