---
title: ‘Never mind,’ he thought to himself; ‘if the lady appears to me a th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Never mind,’ he thought to himself; ‘if the lady appears to me a third time, I will do as she tells me.’ Who acts: you, Michael, lady, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/) / 15

# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Never mind,’ he thought to himself; ‘if the lady appears to me a third time, I will do as she tells me.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, Michael, lady, I · **What happens:** not mind, think, appear, do, tell · **To what, where:** Michael, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (you, Michael, lady, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:2:15
# text = ‘Never mind,’ he thought to himself; ‘if the lady appears to me a third time, I will do as she tells me.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	mind	mind	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	appears	appear	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	20	amod	_	_
20	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
22	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
25	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
26	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
27	tells	tell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	conj	_	_
28	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	27	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **mind** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Michael |  | Michael |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **appear** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | the lady |  | me |  | time |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **do** | future | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | lady |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/16/)
- ↑ back to [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/)