---
title: ‘Oh, my dear,’ said he, ‘can’t you just say that they are green?’ — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, my dear,’ said he, ‘can’t you just say that they are green?’ Who acts: he, eyes. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, 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/pg5615/17/4/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 4

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‘Oh, my dear,’ said he, ‘can’t you just say that they are green?’

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**Who acts:** he, eyes · **What happens:** say, not say, be · **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 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (he, eyes), 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:pg5615:17:4
# text = ‘Oh, my dear,’ said he, ‘can’t you just say that they are green?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	just	just	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	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 that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | can | he |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | present | eyes *= eye* |  |  |  |  | green *property* | tree rules |

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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 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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