---
title: ‘My daughter,’ answered the emperor, ‘what you say is true. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My daughter,’ answered the emperor, ‘what you say is true. Who acts: daughter, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 1, sentence 13

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‘My daughter,’ answered the emperor, ‘what you say is true.

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**Who acts:** daughter, you · **What happens:** answer, say, be · **To what, where:** emperor · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (daughter, 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:pg641:38:13
# text = ‘My daughter,’ answered the emperor, ‘what you say is true.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	nsubj	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | My daughter |  | the emperor |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent emperor=Eventuality |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |

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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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