---
title: But he replied, ‘I like that; have you nothing to tell me?’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he replied, ‘I like that; have you nothing to tell me?’ Who acts: Benjamin, I, you. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/54/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Twelve Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/) / 54

# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But he replied, ‘I like that; have you nothing to tell me?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Benjamin, I, you · **What happens:** reply, like, have, tell · **To what, where:** that, nothing, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Benjamin, I, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:41:54
# text = But he replied, ‘I like that; have you nothing to tell me?’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	like	like	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Benjamin |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **like** | present | I | that |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot that=Theme |
| 3 | **have** | present | you | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | nothing *not said here* | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/53/)
- next →: [sentence 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/55/)
- ↑ back to [The Twelve Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/)