---
title: ‘Wait a moment,’ answered the fish, ‘and I and my friends will soon… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Wait a moment,’ answered the fish, ‘and I and my friends will soon drive them out of the water.’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 2, sentence 89

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‘Wait a moment,’ answered the fish, ‘and I and my friends will soon drive them out of the water.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** wait, answer, drive · **To what, where:** fish, friend, water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg640:31:89
# text = ‘Wait a moment,’ answered the fish, ‘and I and my friends will soon drive them out of the water.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	‘	‘	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	_
17	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	19	advmod	_	_
19	drive	drive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	out	out	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wait** | infinitive |  |  |  |  | moment |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | the fish and ‘ |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **drive** | future | I | friend |  | the water |  | soon *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent they=Theme out water=Trajectory |

<!-- .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 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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