---
title: “Indeed, child,” she said, “your father had a brother, but I always… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Indeed, child,” she said, “your father had a brother, but I always thought he was dead.” Who acts: child, father. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, sentence 8

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“Indeed, child,” she said, “your father had a brother, but I always thought he was dead.”

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**Who acts:** child, father · **What happens:** say, have, think, be · **To what, where:** child, brother · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (child, father), 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:pg503:12:8
# text = “Indeed, child,” she said, “your father had a brother, but I always thought he was dead.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	20	advmod	_	_
20	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | child | child |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | past | your father | a brother |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brother=Patient |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past | child |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | past | father |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | 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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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