---
title: ‘Madam,’ they answered, ‘we are sent for an insignificant little per… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Madam,’ they answered, ‘we are sent for an insignificant little person called Delicia.’ Who acts: guards. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Little Good Mouse, sentence 160

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‘Madam,’ they answered, ‘we are sent for an insignificant little person called Delicia.’

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**Who acts:** guards · **What happens:** answer, send, call · **To what, where:** we, insignificant little person · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (guards), 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:pg540:22:160
# text = ‘Madam,’ they answered, ‘we are sent for an insignificant little person called Delicia.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	sent	send	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	ccomp	_	_
12	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
13	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	insignificant	insignificant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
17	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl	_	_
18	Delicia	Delicia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | guards *= guard* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **send** | present · passive |  | we |  |  |  | for a insignificant little person | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **call** | participle |  | a insignificant little person *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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