---
title: ‘Well,’ said he, ‘did her brothers tell me truly? — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well,’ said he, ‘did her brothers tell me truly? Who acts: rogue, brothers. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 170

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‘Well,’ said he, ‘did her brothers tell me truly?

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**Who acts:** rogue, brothers · **What happens:** say, do, tell · **To what, where:** me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (rogue, brothers), 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:pg540:11:170
# text = ‘Well,’ said he, ‘did her brothers tell me truly?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	truly	truly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** | past | rogue |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | daughter's brothers |  | me |  |  | truly *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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