---
title: ‘You foolish thing,’ said her eldest sister, ‘you are always afraid… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You foolish thing,’ said her eldest sister, ‘you are always afraid of something. Who acts: You, eldest sister. 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 64

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‘You foolish thing,’ said her eldest sister, ‘you are always afraid of something.

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**Who acts:** You, eldest sister · **What happens:** thing, say, be · **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 (You, eldest sister), 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:pg540:2:64
# text = ‘You foolish thing,’ said her eldest sister, ‘you are always afraid of something.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	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	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	10	amod	_	_
10	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	16	advmod	_	_
16	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **thing** |  | You |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | thing's eldest sister |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | of something; afraid, always *property* | 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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