---
title: And when the gazelle saw her it said, ‘Mother, what is it, and why d… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And when the gazelle saw her it said, ‘Mother, what is it, and why do you cry? Who acts: gazelle, rice, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 221

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And when the gazelle saw her it said, ‘Mother, what is it, and why do you cry?

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**Who acts:** gazelle, rice, you · **What happens:** see, say, be, cry · **To what, where:** woman, Mother, rice · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gazelle, rice, you), 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:pg641:15:221
# text = And when the gazelle saw her it said, ‘Mother, what is it, and why do you cry?
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	gazelle	gazelle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	nmod	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	advmod	_	_
19	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the gazelle | woman |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer she=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | rice | Mother |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | rice |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: 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 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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