---
title: ‘Well, I perceive nothing, certainly,’ answered he, ‘but it is very… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well, I perceive nothing, certainly,’ answered he, ‘but it is very odd. Who acts: I, giant, stranger. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, 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/pg3454/9/105/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 105

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‘Well, I perceive nothing, certainly,’ answered he, ‘but it is very odd.

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**Who acts:** I, giant, stranger · **What happens:** perceive, answer, be · **To what, where:** nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, giant, stranger), 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:pg3454:9:105
# text = ‘Well, I perceive nothing, certainly,’ answered he, ‘but it is very odd.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	perceive	perceive	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
8	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	odd	odd	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **perceive** | present | I | nothing |  |  |  | certainly *property* | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | giant |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | present | stranger |  |  |  |  | odd *property* | tree rules |

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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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