---
title: But the answer was always, ‘No, no.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the answer was always, ‘No, no.’ 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 71

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But the answer was always, ‘No, no.’

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**What happens:** be · **To what, where:** no.

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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: 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:pg540:11:71
# text = But the answer was always, ‘No, no.’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
5	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	10	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	no.	no.	NOUN	NN	Abbr=Yes|Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | no. |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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