---
title: “I want you to promise,” she answered, lowering her voice to a whisp… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I want you to promise,” she answered, lowering her voice to a whisper, “never to bathe in those pools again.” Who acts: face, you. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 72

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“I want you to promise,” she answered, lowering her voice to a whisper, “never to bathe in those pools again.”

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**Who acts:** face, you · **What happens:** want, promise, answer, lower, not bathe · **To what, where:** you, voice, whisper · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (face, you), 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:pg3282:10:72
# text = “I want you to promise,” she answered, lowering her voice to a whisper, “never to bathe in those pools again.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	promise	promise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	lowering	lower	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
13	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	whisper	whisper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	bathe	bathe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	25	det	_	_
25	pools	pool	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	_
26	again	again	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** *in a quote* | present | face | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **promise** *speech: promise* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | face |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **lower** | gerund | face *not said here* | face's voice |  | a whisper |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent voice=Theme to whisper=Destination |
| 5 | **not** **bathe** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  | again | in that pools | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent in pool=Theme |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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