---
title: ‘Oh, the middle finger of your left hand,’ the maiden answered, laug… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, the middle finger of your left hand,’ the maiden answered, laughing. Who acts: you, maiden. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon of the North(2), sentence 123

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‘Oh, the middle finger of your left hand,’ the maiden answered, laughing.

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**Who acts:** you, maiden · **What happens:** ', answer, laugh

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, maiden), 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:pg640:5:123
# text = ‘Oh, the middle finger of your left hand,’ the maiden answered, laughing.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	12	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	middle	middle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	left	left	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **'** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the maiden |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **laugh** | gerund | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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