---
title: ‘I only look after the Governor’s geese, that’s what I do, and they… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I only look after the Governor’s geese, that’s what I do, and they are the little fiends which have pinched your reverence.’ Who acts: I, that, fiends, your. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 154

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‘I only look after the Governor’s geese, that’s what I do, and they are the little fiends which have pinched your reverence.’

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**Who acts:** I, that, fiends, your · **What happens:** look, be, do, pinch, reverence · **To what, where:** little fiends

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, that, fiends, your), 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:pg540:9:154
# text = ‘I only look after the Governor’s geese, that’s what I do, and they are the little fiends which have pinched your reverence.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	look	look	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Governor	Governor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	geese	goose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obl	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	fiends	fiend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
23	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	25	nsubj:pass	_	_
24	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	pinched	pinch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	acl	_	_
26	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	reverence	reverence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | present | I |  |  |  | after the Governor's geese |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is a** | present | that |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | present | fiends *= fiend* | the little fiends |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **pinch** | present · perfect · passive |  | the little fiends |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **reverence** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom reverence «feeling transitive»: poss=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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