---
title: “I shall go and tell the water-demons that we expect them to dinner… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I shall go and tell the water-demons that we expect them to dinner to-night. Who acts: friends, we. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 50

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“I shall go and tell the water-demons that we expect them to dinner to-night.

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**Who acts:** friends, we · **What happens:** go, tell, expect · **To what, where:** water demons · **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 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (friends, we), 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:pg3282:7:50
# text = “I shall go and tell the water-demons that we expect them to dinner to-night.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	demons	demon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	obj	_	_
12	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	expect	expect	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	xcomp	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** *in a quote* | shall | your friends *= friend* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive | your friends *= friend* *not said here* |  | the water demons |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent demon=Recipient |
| 3 | **expect** *in a quote* | present | we | the water demons |  |  | night |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent that=Theme they=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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