---
title: “I have been so unlucky, I have never been able to catch one,” repli… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I have been so unlucky, I have never been able to catch one,” replied the tortoise. Who acts: tortoise. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, sentence 89

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“I have been so unlucky, I have never been able to catch one,” replied the tortoise.

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**Who acts:** tortoise · **What happens:** be, not be, catch, reply · **To what, where:** one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tortoise), 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:pg3282:35:89
# text = “I have been so unlucky, I have never been able to catch one,” replied the tortoise.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	unlucky	unlucky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
10	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
11	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
12	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
18	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	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 · perfect | the tortoise *= tortoise* |  |  |  |  | unlucky *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present · perfect | the tortoise *= tortoise* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **catch** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the tortoise *= tortoise* *not said here* | one |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |
| 4 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the tortoise |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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