---
title: I don’t know,” she said; “but I will try.” — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I don’t know,” she said; “but I will try.” Who acts: I, larger. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, sentence 153

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I don’t know,” she said; “but I will try.”

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**Who acts:** I, larger · **What happens:** not know, say, try · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, larger), 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:pg503:4:153
# text = I don’t know,” she said; “but I will try.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	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	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | present · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | larger *= large* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **try** | future | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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