---
title: ‘My father,’ she replied, ‘I owe my life to this youth, who saved me… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My father,’ she replied, ‘I owe my life to this youth, who saved me from a terrible death.’ Who acts: father, I, youth. 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/pg640/33/68/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Magic Ring, sentence 68

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‘My father,’ she replied, ‘I owe my life to this youth, who saved me from a terrible death.’

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**Who acts:** father, I, youth · **What happens:** reply, owe, save · **To what, where:** life, youth, me, terrible death

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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 (father, I, youth), 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:pg640:33:68
# text = ‘My father,’ she replied, ‘I owe my life to this youth, who saved me from a terrible death.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	owe	owe	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	saved	save	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | My father |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **owe** | present | I | my life |  |  |  | to this youth *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent life=Theme to youth=Goal |
| 3 | **save** | past | this youth | me |  | a terrible death |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent i=Theme from death=Source |

<!-- .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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