---
title: “Madam,” answered he, “I was helped by nothing but my desire to obey… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Madam,” answered he, “I was helped by nothing but my desire to obey your wishes.” Who acts: Madam, my, your. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 110

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Madam,” answered he, “I was helped by nothing but my desire to obey your wishes.”

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**Who acts:** Madam, my, your · **What happens:** answer, help, obey, desire, wish · **To what, where:** master, Madam, wishes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Madam, my, your), 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:pg503:28:110
# text = “Madam,” answered he, “I was helped by nothing but my desire to obey your wishes.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	helped	help	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	obl	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	desire	desire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	obey	obey	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
19	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	wishes	wish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Madam |  | master |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent he=Eventuality |
| 2 | **help** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | Madam |  |  |  | by nothing | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Beneficiary clause=Theme |
| 3 | **obey** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Madam *not said here* | your wishes |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wish=Theme |
| 4 | **desire** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom desire «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |
| 5 | **wish** *in a quote* |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom wish «feeling intransitive»: poss=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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