---
title: ‘They are pink and white,’ he replied, ‘and their eyes are blue.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘They are pink and white,’ he replied, ‘and their eyes are blue.’ Who acts: girls, Désiré, eyes. 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 146

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘They are pink and white,’ he replied, ‘and their eyes are blue.’

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**Who acts:** girls, Désiré, eyes · **What happens:** be, reply

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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 (girls, Désiré, eyes), 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:pg540:40:146
# text = ‘They are pink and white,’ he replied, ‘and their eyes are blue.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	pink	pink	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | girls *= girl* |  |  |  |  | pink *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | girls *= girl* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Désiré |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | present | girls's eyes |  |  |  |  | blue *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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