---
title: “Ah, but I can’t do that,” answered the fox, “my bag is sealed up. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ah, but I can’t do that,” answered the fox, “my bag is sealed up. Who acts: fox. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, 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/pg3282/27/20/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 20

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“Ah, but I can’t do that,” answered the fox, “my bag is sealed up.

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**Who acts:** fox · **What happens:** not do, answer, seal up · **To what, where:** that, bag · **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 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox), 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:pg3282:27:20
# text = “Ah, but I can’t do that,” answered the fox, “my bag is sealed up.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	parataxis	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	bag	bag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	sealed	seal	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	ccomp	_	_
21	up	up	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** *in a quote* | can | the fox *= fox* | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the fox |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **seal up** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | my bag |  |  |  |  | vn tape-22.4 «NP V NP»: subject=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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