---
title: She never speaks to me, and if I were nearer to her I know I should… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She never speaks to me, and if I were nearer to her I know I should find her only a shadow, which would be very annoying. Who acts: lion, I, shadow. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Sheep, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Wonderful Sheep, part 2, sentence 46

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She never speaks to me, and if I were nearer to her I know I should find her only a shadow, which would be very annoying.

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**Who acts:** lion, I, shadow · **What happens:** not speak, be, know, find · **To what, where:** me, lion · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Sheep, 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 (lion, I, shadow), 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:pg503:31:46
# text = She never speaks to me, and if I were nearer to her I know I should find her only a shadow, which would be very annoying.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	speaks	speak	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	advcl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
19	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	only	only	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
24	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	28	nsubj	_	_
25	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
26	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	cop	_	_
27	very	very	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
28	annoying	annoying	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | present | lion |  | me |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to i=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I |  | lion |  |  | near *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **know** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **find** | should | I | lion |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Topic |
| 5 | **is** | would | a shadow |  |  |  |  | annoying *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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