---
title: ‘Ouf,’ said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ouf,’ said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree. Who acts: Ouf. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 207

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‘Ouf,’ said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree.

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**Who acts:** Ouf · **What happens:** say, lay · **To what, where:** Ouf, foot · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ouf), 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:pg7277:22:207
# text = ‘Ouf,’ said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ouf	Ouf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	laying	lay	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Ouf |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **lay** | gerund | Ouf *not said here* | Ouf |  | the foot of a tree |  | gently *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent she=Theme at foot=Destination |

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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 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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