---
title: The crow nodded very thoughtfully and said, ‘It might be! — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The crow nodded very thoughtfully and said, ‘It might be! Who acts: crow, story. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 53

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The crow nodded very thoughtfully and said, ‘It might be!

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**Who acts:** crow, story · **What happens:** nod, 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 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crow, story), 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:pg5615:9:53
# text = The crow nodded very thoughtfully and said, ‘It might be!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	crow	crow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	thoughtfully	thoughtfully	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **nod** | past | the crow |  |  |  |  | thoughtfully *property* | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the crow *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** | might | story |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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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