---
title: It is a long time since I set out, but no one can tell me where to f… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It is a long time since I set out, but no one can tell me where to find it.’ Who acts: Blackbird, I, one. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/21/28/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Blackbird, sentence 28

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It is a long time since I set out, but no one can tell me where to find it.’

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**Who acts:** Blackbird, I, one · **What happens:** be, set out, tell, find · **To what, where:** long time, me, Blackbird · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Blackbird, I, one), 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:pg7277:21:28
# text = It is a long time since I set out, but no one can tell me where to find it.’
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
9	out	out	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	13	det	_	_
13	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	19	advmod	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Blackbird | a long time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **set out** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can | no one |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **find** | to-infinitive | no one *not said here* | Blackbird |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

<!-- .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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