---
title: And without waiting for an answer he whispered to the basket: “Littl… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And without waiting for an answer he whispered to the basket: “Little basket, little basket, do your duty.” Who acts: Eh. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 44

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And without waiting for an answer he whispered to the basket: “Little basket, little basket, do your duty.”

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**Who acts:** Eh · **What happens:** wait, whisper, do · **To what, where:** answer, basket, duty · **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 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Eh), 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:pg3282:9:44
# text = And without waiting for an answer he whispered to the basket: “Little basket, little basket, do your duty.”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
3	waiting	wait	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	basket	basket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	Little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	basket	basket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	basket	basket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
21	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	duty	duty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wait** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | for a answer | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | Eh | a answer *not said here* | the basket |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent answer=Topic to basket=Recipient |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | your duty |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent duty=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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