---
title: The Fairy appeared, promised to build the castle, and told Helena to… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Fairy appeared, promised to build the castle, and told Helena to lie down and go to sleep in the meantime. Who acts: Fairy. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 4, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Fairy appeared, promised to build the castle, and told Helena to lie down and go to sleep in the meantime.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fairy · **What happens:** appear, promise, build, tell, lie down, go · **To what, where:** castle, Helena, meantime · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fairy), 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:pg7277:29:4
# text = The Fairy appeared, promised to build the castle, and told Helena to lie down and go to sleep in the meantime.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Fairy	Fairy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	build	build	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	Helena	Helena	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	iobj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
16	down	down	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	meantime	meantime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **appear** | past | the Fairy |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | the Fairy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **build** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the Fairy *not said here* | the castle |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset castle=Product |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the Fairy *not said here* |  | Helena |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent helena=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **lie down** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the Fairy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **go** | infinitive | the Fairy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **sleep** | to-infinitive | the Fairy *not said here* |  |  | the meantime |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in meantime=Location |

<!-- .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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