---
title: ‘Oh! what a poor helpless old creature!’ said another, who felt sorr… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh! what a poor helpless old creature!’ said another, who felt sorry for her. Who acts: another. 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 173

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‘Oh! what a poor helpless old creature!’ said another, who felt sorry for her.

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**Who acts:** another · **What happens:** say, feel · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (another), 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:pg540:9:173
# text = ‘Oh! what a poor helpless old creature!’ said another, who felt sorry for her.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj:outer	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
7	helpless	helpless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	another	another	PRON	DT	PronType=Ind	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
16	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
17	sorry	sorry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **feel** | past | another |  |  |  |  | for creature; sorry *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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