---
title: She showed them the peacock, and asked what it was, and they answere… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She showed them the peacock, and asked what it was, and they answered that it was a bird which people sometimes ate. Who acts: Rosette, peacock, eyes, people. 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 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She showed them the peacock, and asked what it was, and they answered that it was a bird which people sometimes ate.

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**Who acts:** Rosette, peacock, eyes, people · **What happens:** show, ask, be, answer, eat · **To what, where:** eyes, bird · **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 (Rosette, peacock, eyes, people), 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:pg540:11:55
# text = She showed them the peacock, and asked what it was, and they answered that it was a bird which people sometimes ate.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	peacock	peacock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	ccomp	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	ccomp	_	_
21	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	obj	_	_
22	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
23	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	24	advmod	_	_
24	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **show** | past | Rosette | eyes *= eye* |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient peacock=Topic |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | peacock |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | eyes *= eye* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** | past | peacock | a bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **eat** | past | people | a bird |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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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