---
title: “Very well,” said the boy, “what do I do first?” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Very well,” said the boy, “what do I do first?” Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 102

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“Very well,” said the boy, “what do I do first?”

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** say, do · **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 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg3282:6:102
# text = “Very well,” said the boy, “what do I do first?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	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	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
15	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the boy |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | present · do-support | the boy *= boy* |  |  |  |  | first *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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