---
title: ‘Dear, dear!’ thought he, ‘can I be stupid? — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Dear, dear!’ thought he, ‘can I be stupid? Who acts: Dear, I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen, sentence 24

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‘Dear, dear!’ thought he, ‘can I be stupid?

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**Who acts:** Dear, I · **What happens:** think, be · **To what, where:** minister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dear, 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:pg640:6:24
# text = ‘Dear, dear!’ thought he, ‘can I be stupid?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
14	stupid	stupid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Dear | minister |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot he=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | can | I |  |  |  |  | stupid *property* | tree rules |

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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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