---
title: ‘Wait a little,’ answered she; ‘I must first bake this fish. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Wait a little,’ answered she; ‘I must first bake this fish. Who acts: you, I. 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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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 68

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‘Wait a little,’ answered she; ‘I must first bake this fish.

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** wait, answer, bake · **To what, where:** little, wife, fish

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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 (you, I), 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:pg5615:17:68
# text = ‘Wait a little,’ answered she; ‘I must first bake this fish.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	14	advmod	_	_
14	bake	bake	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wait** | imperative | you *not said here* | a little |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | wife |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent she=Eventuality |
| 3 | **bake** | must | I | this fish |  |  |  | first *property* | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fish=Product |

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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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