---
title: ‘I will,’ replied the Gruagach, and they played, and sometimes it se… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I will,’ replied the Gruagach, and they played, and sometimes it seemed as if one would win, and sometimes the other, but in the end the king was the winner. Who acts: birds, it, one, king. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree a
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/8/140/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 140

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I will,’ replied the Gruagach, and they played, and sometimes it seemed as if one would win, and sometimes the other, but in the end the king was the winner.

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**Who acts:** birds, it, one, king · **What happens:** reply, play, seem, win, be · **To what, where:** Gruagach, winner, end

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, it, one, king), 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:pg3454:8:140
# text = ‘I will,’ replied the Gruagach, and they played, and sometimes it seemed as if one would win, and sometimes the other, but in the end the king was the winner.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Gruagach	Gruagach	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	17	advmod	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	win	win	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	27	advmod	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	37	punct	_	_
29	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	37	cc	_	_
30	in	in	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	obl	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	nsubj	_	_
35	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	37	cop	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	winner	winner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | future |  | the Gruagach |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent gruagach=Topic |
| 2 | **play** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **win** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | one |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** | past | the king | the winner |  |  | in the end |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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