---
title: ‘A can of fresh milk, then,’ said the students; ‘but it must not be… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘A can of fresh milk, then,’ said the students; ‘but it must not be skim.’ Who acts: fresh milk, milk. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, 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/pg3454/23/53/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 53

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‘A can of fresh milk, then,’ said the students; ‘but it must not be skim.’

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**Who acts:** fresh milk, milk · **What happens:** say, not be · **To what, where:** students · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fresh milk, milk), 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:pg3454:23:53
# text = ‘A can of fresh milk, then,’ said the students; ‘but it must not be skim.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	students	student	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
18	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	cop	_	_
21	skim	skim	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a fresh milk | the students |  |  | then |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent student=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is** | must | milk |  |  |  |  | skim *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 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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