---
title: ‘They are mine,’ answered the Dragon scornfully, ‘for I shall only g… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘They are mine,’ answered the Dragon scornfully, ‘for I shall only give them one riddle which they will never be able to guess.’ Who acts: soldiers, mine, I, one riddle. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 50

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘They are mine,’ answered the Dragon scornfully, ‘for I shall only give them one riddle which they will never be able to guess.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** soldiers, mine, I, one riddle · **What happens:** be, answer, give, not be, guess · **To what, where:** mine, Dragon, one riddle, soldiers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (soldiers, mine, I, one riddle), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:9:50
# text = ‘They are mine,’ answered the Dragon scornfully, ‘for I shall only give them one riddle which they will never be able to guess.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	mine	my	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Dragon	Dragon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	scornfully	scornfully	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	only	only	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
20	riddle	riddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
21	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	26	nsubj	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
23	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
24	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
25	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	cop	_	_
26	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	acl:relcl	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	guess	guess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | soldiers *= soldier* | mine |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | mine |  | the Dragon |  |  | scornfully *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **give** | shall | I | one riddle | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient riddle=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **is** | future | one riddle |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **guess** | to-infinitive | one riddle *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «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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