---
title: The merchant was too terrified to reply, but Beauty answered sweetly… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The merchant was too terrified to reply, but Beauty answered sweetly: “Good-evening, Beast.” Who acts: merchant, Beauty. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Beauty and the Beast, part 2, sentence 22

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The merchant was too terrified to reply, but Beauty answered sweetly: “Good-evening, Beast.”

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**Who acts:** merchant, Beauty · **What happens:** be, reply, answer

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchant, Beauty), 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:pg503:15:22
# text = The merchant was too terrified to reply, but Beauty answered sweetly: “Good-evening, Beast.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	terrified	terrified	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	reply	reply	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	Beauty	Beauty	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
12	sweetly	sweetly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	Beast	Beast	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the merchant |  |  |  |  | terrified *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the merchant *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Beauty |  |  |  |  | sweetly *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 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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