---
title: “I was told so a little while ago, madam, but how could I believe it… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I was told so a little while ago, madam, but how could I believe it without a single proof?” Who acts: Felicia. 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 98

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“I was told so a little while ago, madam, but how could I believe it without a single proof?”

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**Who acts:** Felicia · **What happens:** tell, believe · **To what, where:** Felicia, door · **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 (Felicia), 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:pg503:22:98
# text = “I was told so a little while ago, madam, but how could I believe it without a single proof?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
9	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	without	without	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	proof	proof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past · passive |  | Felicia |  |  |  | madam *obl*; ago *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 2 | **believe** *in a quote* | could | Felicia | door |  |  |  | without a single proof | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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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