---
title: “Ah! dear madam,” answered Little Thumb (who trembled every joint of… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ah! dear madam,” answered Little Thumb (who trembled every joint of him, as well as his brothers), “what shall we do? Who acts: dear madam, Little Thumb, we. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/65/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Little Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/) / 65

# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 65

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Ah! dear madam,” answered Little Thumb (who trembled every joint of him, as well as his brothers), “what shall we do?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** dear madam, Little Thumb, we · **What happens:** answer, tremble, do · **To what, where:** joint · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (dear madam, Little Thumb, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:33:65
# text = “Ah! dear madam,” answered Little Thumb (who trembled every joint of him, as well as his brothers), “what shall we do?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	Thumb	Thumb	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
11	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	trembled	tremble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
14	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
15	joint	joint	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	23	cc	_	_
20	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	19	fixed	_	_
21	as	as	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
26	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	30	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	30	obj	_	_
28	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
29	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: ask* | past | dear madam |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tremble** | past | Little Thumb | every joint of ogre |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location joint=Theme |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | shall | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 64](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/64/)
- next →: [sentence 66](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/66/)
- ↑ back to [Little Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/)