---
title: ‘Ay,’ said the peasant, ‘now I can see how clever our clerk is. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ay,’ said the peasant, ‘now I can see how clever our clerk is. Who acts: I, clerk. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, 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/pg5615/14/60/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 60

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‘Ay,’ said the peasant, ‘now I can see how clever our clerk is.

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**Who acts:** I, clerk · **What happens:** say, see, be · **To what, where:** peasant · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, clerk), 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:pg5615:14:60
# text = ‘Ay,’ said the peasant, ‘now I can see how clever our clerk is.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ay	ay	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	peasant	peasant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
15	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	_
16	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	clerk	clerk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the peasant |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent peasant=Topic |
| 2 | **see** | can | I |  |  |  | now |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | present | our clerk |  |  |  |  | clever *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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