---
title: ‘Why, that is what I play!’ she said. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Why, that is what I play!’ she said. Who acts: that, I, bird. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd, 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/pg640/43/46/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Swineherd, sentence 46

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‘Why, that is what I play!’ she said.

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**Who acts:** that, I, bird · **What happens:** be, play, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, I, bird), 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:pg640:43:46
# text = ‘Why, that is what I play!’ she said.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obj	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	play	play	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | that |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **play** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | bird |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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