---
title: The old fairy whistled twice, then she cried: — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old fairy whistled twice, then she cried: Who acts: old fairy. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 2, sentence 78

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The old fairy whistled twice, then she cried:

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**Who acts:** old fairy · **What happens:** whistle, cry · **To what, where:** old fairy

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, 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 (old fairy), 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:pg503:24:78
# text = The old fairy whistled twice, then she cried:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
4	whistled	whistle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
5	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **whistle** | participle |  | the old fairy *not said here* |  |  |  | twice *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the old fairy |  |  |  | then |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «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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