---
title: ‘I ask nothing better than to marry,’ replied Désiré, ‘but I have ne… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I ask nothing better than to marry,’ replied Désiré, ‘but I have never seen a woman that pleases me. Who acts: I, Désiré, woman. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I ask nothing better than to marry,’ replied Désiré, ‘but I have never seen a woman that pleases me.

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**Who acts:** I, Désiré, woman · **What happens:** ask, marry, reply, not see, please · **To what, where:** nothing, woman, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Désiré, woman), 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:pg540:40:13
# text = ‘I ask nothing better than to marry,’ replied Désiré, ‘but I have never seen a woman that pleases me.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	_
5	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	amod	_	_
6	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	Désiré	Désiré	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	pleases	please	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	_
24	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | I | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent nothing=Recipient |
| 2 | **marry** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Désiré |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **see** | present · perfect | I | a woman |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer woman=Stimulus |
| 5 | **please** | present | a woman | me |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus i=Experiencer |

<!-- .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.

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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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