---
title: “Because, sire,” she answered, “white suits me better than anything… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Because, sire,” she answered, “white suits me better than anything else.” Who acts: answer. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Sheep, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Wonderful Sheep, part 1, sentence 15

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“Because, sire,” she answered, “white suits me better than anything else.”

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**Who acts:** answer · **What happens:** answer

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Sheep, 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 (answer), 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:pg503:30:15
# text = “Because, sire,” she answered, “white suits me better than anything else.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Because	because	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	4	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	sire	sire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	suits	suit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	ccomp	_	_
15	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	obl	_	_
17	else	else	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | answer |  |  |  |  | because sire | vn reciprocate-112-1 «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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