---
title: “You will quite agree with me, my dear children, that my great age m… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “You will quite agree with me, my dear children, that my great age makes it impossible for me to look after my affairs of state as carefully as I once did. Who acts: You, great age, king. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 1, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“You will quite agree with me, my dear children, that my great age makes it impossible for me to look after my affairs of state as carefully as I once did.

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**Who acts:** You, great age, king · **What happens:** agree, make, look, do · **To what, where:** dear children, that

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, great age, king), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:23:4
# text = “You will quite agree with me, my dear children, that my great age makes it impossible for me to look after my affairs of state as carefully as I once did.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	agree	agree	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	obj	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	_
24	after	after	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	affairs	affair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	state	state	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	_
29	as	as	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
30	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
31	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	34	mark	_	_
32	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
33	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	34	advmod	_	_
34	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **agree** *speech: agree* *in a quote* | future | You | my dear children |  |  |  | with king | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V PP.co-agent how S»: agent=Agent with i=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **make** *in a quote* | present | my great age | that |  |  |  | impossible *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: agent=Asset that=Beneficiary it=Product |
| 3 | **look** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | my great age *not said here* |  |  |  | after my affairs of state | carefully *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **do** *in a quote* | past | king |  |  |  |  | once *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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