---
title: ‘It is nothing,’ said Lina; ‘only the cry of the owl which roosts in… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It is nothing,’ said Lina; ‘only the cry of the owl which roosts in the turrets of the castle.’ Who acts: branch, nothing, owl. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 111

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‘It is nothing,’ said Lina; ‘only the cry of the owl which roosts in the turrets of the castle.’

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**Who acts:** branch, nothing, owl · **What happens:** be, say, roost, cry · **To what, where:** nothing, turrets · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (branch, nothing, owl), 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:pg540:2:111
# text = ‘It is nothing,’ said Lina; ‘only the cry of the owl which roosts in the turrets of the castle.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	Lina	Lina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	cry	cry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	parataxis	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	owl	owl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	roosts	roost	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	turrets	turret	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | branch | nothing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | nothing |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **roost** | present | the owl |  |  | the turrets of the castle |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in turret=Location |
| 4 | **cry** |  | the owl |  |  |  |  |  | nom cry «communication intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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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