---
title: ‘I meant nothing, lady,’ replied Kai; ‘thy praise of Owen is not gre… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I meant nothing, lady,’ replied Kai; ‘thy praise of Owen is not greater than mine.’ Who acts: I, praise, thy. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30, 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/pg3454/30/68/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 68

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‘I meant nothing, lady,’ replied Kai; ‘thy praise of Owen is not greater than mine.’

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**Who acts:** I, praise, thy · **What happens:** mean, reply, not be, praise · **To what, where:** nothing, Kai, Owen

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, praise, thy), 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:pg3454:30:68
# text = ‘I meant nothing, lady,’ replied Kai; ‘thy praise of Owen is not greater than mine.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	Kai	Kai	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	praise	praise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	Owen	Owen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	conj	_	_
20	than	than	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	mine	my	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | past | I | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | I *not said here* |  | Kai |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent kai=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **is** | present | thy praise of Owen |  |  |  |  | than mine; great *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **praise** |  | thy | Owen |  |  |  |  | nom praise «communication transitive»: poss=agent of=patient |

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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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