---
title: I am a miserable wretch who has displeased you without being able to… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I am a miserable wretch who has displeased you without being able to help himself.” Who acts: I, miserable wretch. 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 78

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I am a miserable wretch who has displeased you without being able to help himself.”

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**Who acts:** I, miserable wretch · **What happens:** be, displease, help · **To what, where:** miserable wretch, you, Bellissima

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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 (I, miserable wretch), 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:pg503:7:78
# text = I am a miserable wretch who has displeased you without being able to help himself.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	wretch	wretch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
7	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	displeased	displease	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
12	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	advcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | I | a miserable wretch |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **displease** | present · perfect | a miserable wretch | you |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus you=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | gerund | a miserable wretch *not said here* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **help** | to-infinitive | a miserable wretch *not said here* | Bellissima |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Beneficiary |

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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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