---
title: ‘Alas, good mother,’ answered the Queen, ‘I am unhappy because I hav… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Alas, good mother,’ answered the Queen, ‘I am unhappy because I have no children.’ Who acts: good mother, I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 3, sentence 97

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‘Alas, good mother,’ answered the Queen, ‘I am unhappy because I have no children.’

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**Who acts:** good mother, I · **What happens:** answer, be, have · **To what, where:** Queen, children · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (good mother, 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:pg640:12:97
# text = ‘Alas, good mother,’ answered the Queen, ‘I am unhappy because I have no children.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	unhappy	unhappy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	_
16	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
19	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | good mother |  | the Queen |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent queen=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | unhappy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | present | I | no children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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