---
title: ‘I am no coward,’ says Sigurd; ‘why do you want me to fight with thi… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I am no coward,’ says Sigurd; ‘why do you want me to fight with this dragon?’ Who acts: I, Sigurd, you, me. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/51/33/)

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Story of Sigurd, sentence 33

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‘I am no coward,’ says Sigurd; ‘why do you want me to fight with this dragon?’

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**Who acts:** I, Sigurd, you, me · **What happens:** be, say, want, fight · **To what, where:** coward, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Sigurd, you, me), 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:pg540:51:33
# text = ‘I am no coward,’ says Sigurd; ‘why do you want me to fight with this dragon?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
5	coward	coward	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
8	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Sigurd	Sigurd	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
13	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	fight	fight	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	det	_	_
21	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | I | no coward |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Sigurd |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **want** | present · do-support | you | me |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **fight** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | me *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with this dragon | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with dragon=Co-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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