---
title: ‘I am to help you,’ he answered, ‘and have nothing to do all day, ex… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I am to help you,’ he answered, ‘and have nothing to do all day, except to milk the black cow dry.’ Who acts: I, maiden. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 32

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‘I am to help you,’ he answered, ‘and have nothing to do all day, except to milk the black cow dry.’

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**Who acts:** I, maiden · **What happens:** help, answer, have, do · **To what, where:** you, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, 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:pg641:10:32
# text = ‘I am to help you,’ he answered, ‘and have nothing to do all day, except to milk the black cow dry.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
15	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	19	det	_	_
19	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	except	except	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
25	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
26	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	_
27	dry	dry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **help** | present | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | maiden |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | present |  | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive |  | nothing *not said here* |  |  | day | except milk  the black cow dry | vn act-114-1 «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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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