---
title: “No, nothing, nothing; except, perhaps—but of course that is impossi… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “No, nothing, nothing; except, perhaps—but of course that is impossible!” Who acts: that. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 20

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“No, nothing, nothing; except, perhaps—but of course that is impossible!”

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**Who acts:** that · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that), 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:pg3282:8:20
# text = “No, nothing, nothing; except, perhaps—but of course that is impossible!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
8	except	except	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	17	advmod	_	_
14	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	fixed	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	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 | that |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | tree rules |

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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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