---
title: ‘What!’ said the Princess, ‘do they dare to kill that beautiful crea… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What!’ said the Princess, ‘do they dare to kill that beautiful creature and eat it? Who acts: Princess. 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 56

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‘What!’ said the Princess, ‘do they dare to kill that beautiful creature and eat it?

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**Who acts:** Princess · **What happens:** say, dare, kill, eat · **To what, where:** beautiful creature, creature · **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 (Princess), 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:pg540:11:56
# text = ‘What!’ said the Princess, ‘do they dare to kill that beautiful creature and eat it?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj:outer	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	dare	dare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
16	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	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 |
| 2 | **dare** | present · do-support | Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **kill** | to-infinitive | Princess *not said here* | that beautiful creature |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent creature=Theme |
| 4 | **eat** | infinitive | Princess *not said here* | creature |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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 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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