---
title: But the prince replied, ‘If it is the princess, we must go quickly. — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the prince replied, ‘If it is the princess, we must go quickly. Who acts: prince, promise, we. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg5615/21/92/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 92

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But the prince replied, ‘If it is the princess, we must go quickly.

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**Who acts:** prince, promise, we · **What happens:** reply, be, go · **To what, where:** princess · **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 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, promise, we), 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:pg5615:21:92
# text = But the prince replied, ‘If it is the princess, we must go quickly.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	replied	reply	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
16	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | participle | the prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | promise | the princess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | must | we |  |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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