---
title: “Get rid of your only daughter?” they answered, in surprise. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Get rid of your only daughter?” they answered, in surprise. Who acts: men. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 80

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“Get rid of your only daughter?” they answered, in surprise.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** get, answer · **To what, where:** surprise · **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 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), 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:pg3282:15:80
# text = “Get rid of your only daughter?” they answered, in surprise.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
3	rid	rid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	surprise	surprise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | rid *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: ask* | past | men *= man* |  |  | surprise |  |  | 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 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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