---
title: ‘Of course,’ said the king, ‘it may not be the right man, after all,… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Of course,’ said the king, ‘it may not be the right man, after all, but then again it MAY be. Who acts: apple. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 3, 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/pg3454/3/16/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 3, sentence 16

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‘Of course,’ said the king, ‘it may not be the right man, after all, but then again it MAY be.

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**Who acts:** apple · **What happens:** say, not be, be · **To what, where:** king, right man · **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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (apple), 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:pg3454:3:16
# text = ‘Of course,’ said the king, ‘it may not be the right man, after all, but then again it MAY be.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	6	advmod	_	_
3	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
12	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	right	right	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	after	after	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
23	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	24	advmod	_	_
24	again	again	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	MAY	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the king and the right man |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent king=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | may | apple | the right man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | may | apple |  |  |  | again |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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