---
title: They answered, ‘We are three soldiers, and have deserted because our… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They answered, ‘We are three soldiers, and have deserted because our pay was so small. Who acts: others, We, pay, our. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 13

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They answered, ‘We are three soldiers, and have deserted because our pay was so small.

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**Who acts:** others, We, pay, our · **What happens:** answer, be, desert, pay · **To what, where:** three soldiers

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (others, We, pay, our), 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:pg640:9:13
# text = They answered, ‘We are three soldiers, and have deserted because our pay was so small.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
8	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	deserted	desert	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
13	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
14	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	pay	pay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | others *= other* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | We | three soldiers |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **desert** | present · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn leave-51.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | our pay |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **pay** |  | our |  |  |  |  |  | nom pay «possession transitive»: poss=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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