---
title: “It is my father, I am sure,” she cried; and the bird piped in answer. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “It is my father, I am sure,” she cried; and the bird piped in answer. Who acts: redbreast, father, girl, bird. 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 6

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“It is my father, I am sure,” she cried; and the bird piped in answer.

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**Who acts:** redbreast, father, girl, bird · **What happens:** be, cry, pipe · **To what, where:** father, answer · **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 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (redbreast, father, girl, bird), 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:pg3282:8:6
# text = “It is my father, I am sure,” she cried; and the bird piped in answer.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	piped	pipe	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | redbreast | my father |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | my father |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | girl |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **pipe** | participle | the bird |  |  | answer |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in answer=Location |

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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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