---
title: “Ah!” said he, “my merry lads, are you there? — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ah!” said he, “my merry lads, are you there? Who acts: ogre, merry lads. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 101

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“Ah!” said he, “my merry lads, are you there?

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**Who acts:** ogre, merry lads · **What happens:** say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ogre, merry lads), 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:pg503:33:101
# text = “Ah!” said he, “my merry lads, are you there?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	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	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	merry	merry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	lads	lad	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | ogre |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | my merry lads |  |  |  |  | there *property* | tree rules |

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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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