---
title: ‘I am not quite certain,’ said the man, ‘but I think I see something… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I am not quite certain,’ said the man, ‘but I think I see something coming in the far distance.’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Farmer Weatherbeard, sentence 87

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‘I am not quite certain,’ said the man, ‘but I think I see something coming in the far distance.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not be, say, think, see, come · **To what, where:** man, something · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Farmer Weatherbeard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg540:43:87
# text = ‘I am not quite certain,’ said the man, ‘but I think I see something coming in the far distance.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
19	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	18	obj	_	_
20	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	acl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	far	far	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | certain *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the man |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent man=Topic |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **see** | present | I | something |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer something=Stimulus |
| 5 | **come** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | in the far distance | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in distance=Location |

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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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