---
title: But we must not despair; it seems to me, after what you have told me… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But we must not despair; it seems to me, after what you have told me, that something must be going to happen soon. Who acts: we, you, something. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Felicia and the Pot of Pinks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Felicia and the Pot of Pinks, sentence 77

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But we must not despair; it seems to me, after what you have told me, that something must be going to happen soon.

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**Who acts:** we, you, something · **What happens:** not despair, seem, tell, go, happen · **To what, where:** nurse, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Felicia and the Pot of Pinks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, you, something), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg503:1686`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg503:22:77
# text = But we must not despair; it seems to me, after what you have told me, that something must be going to happen soon.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	despair	despair	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	expl	_	_
8	seems	seem	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	after	after	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obl	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	iobj	_	_
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	23	nsubj	_	_
21	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	aux	_	_
23	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	ccomp	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	_
26	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	25	advmod	_	_
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **despair** | must | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **seem** | present |  | nurse | me |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present · perfect | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **go** | must · progressive | something |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **happen** | to-infinitive | something *not said here* |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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