---
title: We are quite alone: nobody will ever know.’ — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: We are quite alone: nobody will ever know.’ Who acts: We, nobody. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 87

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We are quite alone: nobody will ever know.’

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**Who acts:** We, nobody · **What happens:** be, know

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, nobody), 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:pg3454:7:87
# text = We are quite alone: nobody will ever know.’
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	alone	alone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	9	nsubj	_	_
7	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	9	advmod	_	_
9	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | We |  |  |  |  | alone *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | future | nobody |  |  |  | ever |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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