---
title: “It is very curious, certainly,” said he; “but which end is it that… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “It is very curious, certainly,” said he; “but which end is it that restores people to life? Who acts: staff, man, end. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, 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/pg3282/24/89/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 89

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“It is very curious, certainly,” said he; “but which end is it that restores people to life?

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**Who acts:** staff, man, end · **What happens:** be, say · **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 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (staff, man, end), 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:pg3282:24:89
# text = “It is very curious, certainly,” said he; “but which end is it that restores people to life?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
15	which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	16	det	_	_
16	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
20	restores	restore	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
21	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | staff |  |  |  |  | certainly, curious *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | which end |  |  |  |  | to life; restore *property* | 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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