---
title: Suddenly a soft voice replied, ‘Be comforted, my child: I have come… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Suddenly a soft voice replied, ‘Be comforted, my child: I have come to help you.’ Who acts: soft voice, I. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 3, sentence 118

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Suddenly a soft voice replied, ‘Be comforted, my child: I have come to help you.’

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**Who acts:** soft voice, I · **What happens:** reply, comfort, come, help · **To what, where:** child, you

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soft voice, 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:pg7277:28:118
# text = Suddenly a soft voice replied, ‘Be comforted, my child: I have come to help you.’
1	Suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	replied	reply	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	comforted	comfort	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | participle | a soft voice |  |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **comfort** | infinitive · passive | a soft voice *not said here* | my child |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» |
| 3 | **come** | present · perfect | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **help** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  | you |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Beneficiary |

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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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