---
title: “Dear brother,” answered the fox with a sob, “do not blame me for th… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Dear brother,” answered the fox with a sob, “do not blame me for this misfortune. Who acts: Dear brother. 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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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 53

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“Dear brother,” answered the fox with a sob, “do not blame me for this misfortune.

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**Who acts:** Dear brother · **What happens:** answer, not blame · **To what, where:** fox, Dear brother · **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 (Dear brother), 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:pg3282:27:53
# text = “Dear brother,” answered the fox with a sob, “do not blame me for this misfortune.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sob	sob	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	do	do	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	blame	blame	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	misfortune	misfortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Dear brother |  | the fox |  |  | with a sob | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent fox=Eventuality |
| 2 | **not** **blame** *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support | Dear brother *not said here* | Dear brother *= brother* |  |  |  | for this misfortune | vn judgment-33.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent i=Theme for misfortune=Attribute |

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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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