---
title: ‘Yes,’ replied Costan, understanding directly what was wanted. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Yes,’ replied Costan, understanding directly what was wanted. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 4, sentence 52

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‘Yes,’ replied Costan, understanding directly what was wanted.

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**What happens:** reply, understand, want · **To what, where:** Costan

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg641:22:52
# text = ‘Yes,’ replied Costan, understanding directly what was wanted.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Costan	Costan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	understanding	understand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
9	directly	directly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	wanted	want	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | Costan |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent costan=Topic |
| 2 | **understand** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |
| 3 | **want** | past · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF» |

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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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