---
title: ‘I declare,’ said she, ‘that it’s perfectly true: wherever there is… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I declare,’ said she, ‘that it’s perfectly true: wherever there is a girl you may be sure that a young man will appear before long! Who acts: I, house, length, girl. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Featherhead and the Princess Celandine, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Featherhead and the Princess Celandine, sentence 176

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I declare,’ said she, ‘that it’s perfectly true: wherever there is a girl you may be sure that a young man will appear before long!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, house, length, girl, young man · **What happens:** declare, say, be, appear · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Featherhead and the Princess Celandine. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, house, length, girl), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:12:176
# text = ‘I declare,’ said she, ‘that it’s perfectly true: wherever there is a girl you may be sure that a young man will appear before long!
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	declare	declare	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
16	wherever	wherever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	18	expl	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
22	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	cop	_	_
24	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	_
25	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
29	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	appear	appear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	ccomp	_	_
31	before	before	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
32	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	30	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **declare** *speech: other* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | house |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | present | length |  |  |  |  | perfectly, true *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | may · present | a girl |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **appear** | future | a young man |  |  |  |  | before, long *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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