---
title: ‘My father’s breath is burning my back,’ cried the girl at midday. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My father’s breath is burning my back,’ cried the girl at midday. Who acts: breath. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/29/60/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/29/) / 60

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 60

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘My father’s breath is burning my back,’ cried the girl at midday.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** breath · **What happens:** burn, cry · **To what, where:** back, girl, midday · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (breath), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:29:60
# text = ‘My father’s breath is burning my back,’ cried the girl at midday.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	ccomp	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
12	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	midday	midday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **burn** | present · progressive | My father's breath | my back |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent back=Theme |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past |  | the girl |  | midday |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/29/59/)
- next →: [sentence 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/29/61/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/29/)