---
title: ‘But,’ says the Black Thief, ‘I was within one moment of my death, a… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But,’ says the Black Thief, ‘I was within one moment of my death, and I am here yet.’ Who acts: Black Thief, I, my. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., 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/pg540/8/64/)

<!-- 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 Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/) / 64

# The Red Fairy Book, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., sentence 64

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘But,’ says the Black Thief, ‘I was within one moment of my death, and I am here yet.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Black Thief, I, my · **What happens:** say, be, die · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Black Thief, I, my), 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:pg540:8:64
# text = ‘But,’ says the Black Thief, ‘I was within one moment of my death, and I am here yet.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	Black	Black	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	Thief	Thief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	within	within	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
23	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	ccomp	_	_
24	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the Black Thief |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | I |  |  |  | within one moment | of my death | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  | yet | here *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **die** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom death «event intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/63/)
- next →: [sentence 65](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/65/)
- ↑ back to [The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/)