---
title: ‘I do not sell my silence,’ answered Michael, and he went away witho… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I do not sell my silence,’ answered Michael, and he went away without picking up the purse. Who acts: I, Michael, my. 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 124

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‘I do not sell my silence,’ answered Michael, and he went away without picking up the purse.

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**Who acts:** I, Michael, my · **What happens:** not sell, answer, go away, pick up, silence · **To what, where:** silence, Michael, purse · **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 (I, Michael, my), 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:pg540:2:124
# text = ‘I do not sell my silence,’ answered Michael, and he went away without picking up the purse.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	sell	sell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	Michael	Michael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	away	away	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
18	picking	pick	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
19	up	up	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	purse	purse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **sell** | present · do-support | I | my silence |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent silence=Theme |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | Michael |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go away** | past | Michael |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **pick up** | gerund | Michael *not said here* | the purse |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent purse=Topic |
| 5 | **silence** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom silence «state transitive»: poss=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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