---
title: ‘We must sing you a song in return,’ said the girl, but as Elsa did… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We must sing you a song in return,’ said the girl, but as Elsa did not know any songs, she had to sing by herself. Who acts: We, girl. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 64

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‘We must sing you a song in return,’ said the girl, but as Elsa did not know any songs, she had to sing by herself.

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**Who acts:** We, girl · **What happens:** sing, say, not know, have · **To what, where:** song, you, return, songs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, girl), 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:pg641:2:64
# text = ‘We must sing you a song in return,’ said the girl, but as Elsa did not know any songs, she had to sing by herself.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	return	return	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Elsa	Elsa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
19	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
22	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	23	det	_	_
23	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
25	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	_
29	by	by	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | must | We | a song | you | return |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent you=Beneficiary song=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the girl |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **know** | past · do-support |  | any songs |  |  |  | as Elsa | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer song=Stimulus as elsa=Attribute |
| 4 | **have** | past | girl |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  | by girl | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by herself=Location |

<!-- .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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