---
title: ‘That is a sensible little pig,’ replied his mother, looking fondly… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘That is a sensible little pig,’ replied his mother, looking fondly at him. Who acts: That, sensible little pig. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Little Pigs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Little Pigs, sentence 26

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘That is a sensible little pig,’ replied his mother, looking fondly at him.

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**Who acts:** That, sensible little pig · **What happens:** be, reply, look · **To what, where:** sensible little pig, mother

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Little Pigs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, sensible little pig), 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:pg7277:13:26
# text = ‘That is a sensible little pig,’ replied his mother, looking fondly at him.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	sensible	sensible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	pig	pig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	fondly	fondly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | That | a sensible little pig |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | a sensible little pig | Blacky's mother |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent mother=Topic |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | a sensible little pig *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at Blacky; fondly *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=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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