---
title: ‘Nonsense! it is our horse,’ answered one of the Afghans beginning t… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Nonsense! it is our horse,’ answered one of the Afghans beginning to untie the bridle. Who acts: Nonsense, horse, Afghans. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/15/59/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 59

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‘Nonsense! it is our horse,’ answered one of the Afghans beginning to untie the bridle.

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**Who acts:** Nonsense, horse, Afghans · **What happens:** be, answer, begin, untie · **To what, where:** horse, one, bridle

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nonsense, horse, Afghans), 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:pg3454:15:59
# text = ‘Nonsense! it is our horse,’ answered one of the Afghans beginning to untie the bridle.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Afghans	Afghan	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	beginning	begin	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	acl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	untie	untie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	bridle	bridle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Nonsense | our horse |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | our horse *not said here* | one of the Afghans |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent one=Eventuality |
| 3 | **begin** | gerund | the Afghans *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **untie** | to-infinitive | the Afghans *not said here* | the bridle |  |  |  |  | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bridle=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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