---
title: ‘A gentle son-in-law, truly!’ cried Yspaddaden, ‘the iron pains me l… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘A gentle son-in-law, truly!’ cried Yspaddaden, ‘the iron pains me like the bite of a horse-leech. Who acts: law, iron. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, sentence 25

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‘A gentle son-in-law, truly!’ cried Yspaddaden, ‘the iron pains me like the bite of a horse-leech.

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**Who acts:** law, iron · **What happens:** cry, pain, bite · **To what, where:** me, horse leech

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (law, iron), 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:pg3454:39:25
# text = ‘A gentle son-in-law, truly!’ cried Yspaddaden, ‘the iron pains me like the bite of a horse-leech.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	truly	truly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
13	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	Yspaddaden	Yspaddaden	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	pains	pain	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	like	like	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	bite	bite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
26	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	leech	leech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | law |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **pain** | present | the iron | me |  |  |  | like the bite of a horse leech | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus i=Experiencer |
| 3 | **bite** |  |  | a horse leech |  |  |  |  | nom bite «state transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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