---
title: ‘I will tell you,’ answered Désiré, ‘though most likely you will lau… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I will tell you,’ answered Désiré, ‘though most likely you will laugh at me. Who acts: I, most. 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 46

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‘I will tell you,’ answered Désiré, ‘though most likely you will laugh at me.

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**Who acts:** I, most · **What happens:** tell, answer, laugh · **To what, where:** you, Désiré · **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, most), 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:pg540:40:46
# text = ‘I will tell you,’ answered Désiré, ‘though most likely you will laugh at me.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
9	Désiré	Désiré	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
13	most	most	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	17	nsubj	_	_
14	likely	likely	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	laugh	laugh	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | future | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent you=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | Désiré |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent désiré=Eventuality |
| 3 | **laugh** | future | most |  |  |  |  | at me; likely *property* | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «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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