---
title: “You know best,” answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “You know best,” answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him. Who acts: You, Mermaid. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, sentence 47

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“You know best,” answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him.

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**Who acts:** You, Mermaid · **What happens:** know, answer, smile · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, Mermaid), 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:pg503:7:47
# text = “You know best,” answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
4	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
7	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Mermaid	Mermaid	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	smiling	smile	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
12	kindly	kindly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | present | You |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the Mermaid |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **smile** | gerund | the Mermaid *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at Love; kindly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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