---
title: Isn’t that true?’ said he, looking at her. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Isn’t that true?’ said he, looking at her. Who acts: that, Jesper. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 145

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Isn’t that true?’ said he, looking at her.

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**Who acts:** that, Jesper · **What happens:** not be, say, look · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, Jesper), 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:pg641:24:145
# text = Isn’t that true?’ said he, looking at her.
1	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
4	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jesper |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | Jesper *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at girl | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at she=Theme |

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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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