---
title: The Queen grew white and her heart sank, but she replied: “We owe it… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Queen grew white and her heart sank, but she replied: “We owe it to him on account of his great fidelity.” Who acts: Queen, heart, We. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Trusty John, sentence 116

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The Queen grew white and her heart sank, but she replied: “We owe it to him on account of his great fidelity.”

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**Who acts:** Queen, heart, We · **What happens:** grow, sink, reply, owe, account · **To what, where:** price, king, account, great fidelity · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Queen, heart, We), 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:pg503:41:116
# text = The Queen grew white and her heart sank, but she replied: “We owe it to him on account of his great fidelity.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	owe	owe	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	_
20	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	account	account	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
24	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	fidelity	fidelity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | the Queen |  |  |  |  | white *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sink** | past | Queen's heart |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Queen |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **owe** *in a quote* | present | We | price | king | account of king's great fidelity |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent it=Theme to he=Goal |
| 5 | **account** *in a quote* |  |  | king's great fidelity |  |  |  |  | nom account «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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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