---
title: The king did not answer directly, but after awhile he spoke: ‘Why sh… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The king did not answer directly, but after awhile he spoke: ‘Why should I give away my BEST sporting dog. Who acts: king, I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 6

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The king did not answer directly, but after awhile he spoke: ‘Why should I give away my BEST sporting dog.

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**Who acts:** king, I · **What happens:** not answer, speak, give away, sport · **To what, where:** BEST sporting dog · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, 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 (king, I), 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:pg641:9:6
# text = The king did not answer directly, but after awhile he spoke: ‘Why should I give away my BEST sporting dog.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	directly	directly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	after	after	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	awhile	awhile	ADV	RB	_	12	obl	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
16	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
19	away	away	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
21	BEST	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	23	amod	_	_
22	sporting	sport	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	23	amod	_	_
23	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **answer** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | the king |  |  |  |  | directly *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **give away** | should | I |  | my BEST sporting dog |  |  | away *property* | vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent dog=Theme |
| 4 | **sport** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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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