---
title: ‘Tell his majesty I am ready to do his bidding, but since my birth n… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Tell his majesty I am ready to do his bidding, but since my birth no ray of light has fallen upon my face. Who acts: you, I, ray, King. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18, sentence 27

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‘Tell his majesty I am ready to do his bidding, but since my birth no ray of light has fallen upon my face.

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**Who acts:** you, I, ray, King · **What happens:** tell, be, do, fall, bid, ray · **To what, where:** majesty, bidding, face, light · **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 18. 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, ray, King), 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:pg5615:18:27
# text = ‘Tell his majesty I am ready to do his bidding, but since my birth no ray of light has fallen upon my face.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	majesty	majesty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	ccomp	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	bidding	bidding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
14	since	since	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	birth	birth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
17	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	ray	ray	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
21	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	fallen	fall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
23	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* | King's majesty |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent majesty=Recipient |
| 2 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | King's bidding |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bidding=Eventuality |
| 4 | **fall** | present · perfect | no ray of light |  |  | my face | since my birth |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme upon face=Location |
| 5 | **bid** |  | King |  |  |  |  |  | nom bidding «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
| 6 | **ray** |  |  | light |  |  |  |  | nom ray «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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