---
title: But all the answer he got was: “I thought you would never be able to… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But all the answer he got was: “I thought you would never be able to suffer pain like those little birds.” Who acts: answer, I, you. 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 8

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But all the answer he got was: “I thought you would never be able to suffer pain like those little birds.”

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**Who acts:** answer, I, you · **What happens:** be, think, not be, suffer · **To what, where:** pain · **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 (answer, I, 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:pg3282:27:8
# text = But all the answer he got was: “I thought you would never be able to suffer pain like those little birds.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	4	det:predet	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	cop	_	_
16	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	ccomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	suffer	suffer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
20	like	like	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
22	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | all answer |  |  |  |  | get *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | would | you |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **suffer** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | pain |  |  |  | like that little birds | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer pain=Stimulus |

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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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