---
title: “I am flying from the mermaid,” the prince answered, in a quaking vo… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I am flying from the mermaid,” the prince answered, in a quaking voice. Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/17/111/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 111

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“I am flying from the mermaid,” the prince answered, in a quaking voice.

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** fly, answer · **To what, where:** quaking voice · **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 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), 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:pg3282:17:111
# text = “I am flying from the mermaid,” the prince answered, in a quaking voice.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	ccomp	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	mermaid	mermaid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	quaking	quaking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the prince *= prince* |  |  |  |  | from the mermaid | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from mermaid=Trajectory |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the prince |  |  | a quaking voice |  |  | 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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