---
title: The Prince answered impatiently, ‘There’s not much good my telling y… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Prince answered impatiently, ‘There’s not much good my telling you, Puddocky, for you couldn’t help me if I did.’ Who acts: Prince, my, you, I. 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 83

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The Prince answered impatiently, ‘There’s not much good my telling you, Puddocky, for you couldn’t help me if I did.’

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**Who acts:** Prince, my, you, I · **What happens:** answer, tell, not help, do · **To what, where:** you, me · **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 (Prince, my, you, 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:pg7277:29:83
# text = The Prince answered impatiently, ‘There’s not much good my telling you, Puddocky, for you couldn’t help me if I did.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	impatiently	impatiently	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	8	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
10	much	much	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	Puddocky	Puddocky	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
23	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
25	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the Prince |  |  |  |  | impatiently *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | gerund | my |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **help** | could | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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