---
title: ‘If you please, sire,’ said the Princess, dropping a curtsey. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘If you please, sire,’ said the Princess, dropping a curtsey. Who acts: you, Princess. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess Mayblossom, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Princess Mayblossom, part 2, sentence 10

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‘If you please, sire,’ said the Princess, dropping a curtsey.

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**Who acts:** you, Princess · **What happens:** sire, say, drop · **To what, where:** curtsey · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess Mayblossom, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Princess), 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:pg540:4:10
# text = ‘If you please, sire,’ said the Princess, dropping a curtsey.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	please	please	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	sire	sire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	dropping	drop	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	curtsey	curtsey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sire** *a condition, not said to happen* |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **drop** | gerund | the Princess *not said here* | a curtsey |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent curtsey=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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