---
title: ‘Ah! little one,’ said the Queen, ‘it cost me dear to save your life. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ah! little one,’ said the Queen, ‘it cost me dear to save your life. Who acts: Queen, dancing. 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 80

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‘Ah! little one,’ said the Queen, ‘it cost me dear to save your life.

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**Who acts:** Queen, dancing · **What happens:** say, cost, save · **To what, where:** me, life · **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 (Queen, dancing), 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:pg540:22:80
# text = ‘Ah! little one,’ said the Queen, ‘it cost me dear to save your life.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	cost	cost	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	iobj	_	_
16	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
19	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Queen |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cost** | past | dancing |  | me |  |  | dear *property* | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme i=Value |
| 3 | **save** | to-infinitive | dancing *not said here* | your life |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Theme |

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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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