---
title: ‘We have every right to beat him,’ they replied; ‘he has just devour… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We have every right to beat him,’ they replied; ‘he has just devoured a newly-killed pig.’ Who acts: We, dogs, Martin. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring, 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/pg640/33/11/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Magic Ring, sentence 11

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘We have every right to beat him,’ they replied; ‘he has just devoured a newly-killed pig.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** We, dogs, Martin · **What happens:** have, beat, reply, devour, kill · **To what, where:** right, Martin, killed pig · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, dogs, Martin), 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:pg640:33:11
# text = ‘We have every right to beat him,’ they replied; ‘he has just devoured a newly-killed pig.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
4	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	det	_	_
5	right	right	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	just	just	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	devoured	devour	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	ccomp	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
20	newly	newly	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	killed	kill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	amod	_	_
23	pig	pig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | We | every right |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent right=Patient |
| 2 | **beat** | to-infinitive | We *not said here* | Martin |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location he=Theme |
| 3 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | dogs *= dog* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **devour** | present · perfect | Martin | a killed pig |  |  |  |  | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pig=Patient |
| 5 | **kill** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | newly *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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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