---
title: “Of course I can,” replied the bear, “what nonsense you talk! — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Of course I can,” replied the bear, “what nonsense you talk! Who acts: bear, you. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, 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/pg3282/26/68/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 68

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“Of course I can,” replied the bear, “what nonsense you talk!

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**Who acts:** bear, you · **What happens:** reply, nonsense, talk · **To what, where:** nonsense · **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 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bear, 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:pg3282:26:68
# text = “Of course I can,” replied the bear, “what nonsense you talk!
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	5	advmod	_	_
3	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	fixed	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	nsubj	_	_
14	nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	appos	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	talk	talk	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: express* | past | the bear |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **nonsense** *in a quote* |  | the bear |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **talk** *in a quote* | present | you | nonsense *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent nonsense=Patient |

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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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