---
title: “A fairy gave them the power to speak,” replied Miranda. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “A fairy gave them the power to speak,” replied Miranda. Who acts: fairy, Miranda. 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 82

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“A fairy gave them the power to speak,” replied Miranda.

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**Who acts:** fairy, Miranda · **What happens:** give, speak, reply · **To what, where:** power, monkey · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (fairy, Miranda), 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:pg503:30:82
# text = “A fairy gave them the power to speak,” replied Miranda.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Miranda	Miranda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *in a quote* | past | a fairy | the power | monkey |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient power=Theme |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | a fairy *not said here* | the power *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Miranda |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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