---
title: ‘A thief,’ he answered, ‘that I caught robbing me.’ — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘A thief,’ he answered, ‘that I caught robbing me.’ Who acts: thief, I. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, 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/pg3454/35/74/)

<!-- 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 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/) / 74

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 74

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘A thief,’ he answered, ‘that I caught robbing me.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** thief, I · **What happens:** answer, catch, rob · **To what, where:** me

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thief, I), 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:pg3454:35:74
# text = ‘A thief,’ he answered, ‘that I caught robbing me.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	thief	thief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
13	robbing	rob	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	xcomp	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | a thief |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **catch** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **rob** | gerund | I *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | vn cheat-10.6.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Source |

<!-- .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 73](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/73/)
- next →: [sentence 75](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/75/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/35/)