---
title: ‘But,’ said she, ‘at your age, you should attend to what old people… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But,’ said she, ‘at your age, you should attend to what old people say, and learn to have patience.’ Who acts: woman, you, old people. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1, sentence 56

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘But,’ said she, ‘at your age, you should attend to what old people say, and learn to have patience.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** woman, you, old people · **What happens:** say, attend, learn, have · **To what, where:** age, patience · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, you, old people), 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:pg7277:36:56
# text = ‘But,’ said she, ‘at your age, you should attend to what old people say, and learn to have patience.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	attend	attend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	obl	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
20	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	learn	learn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|Typo=Yes|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	_
26	patience	patience	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **attend** | should | you |  |  |  | at your age |  | vn caring-75.2-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent to what=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | old people |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **learn** | present | woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **have** | to-infinitive | woman *not said here* | patience |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent patience=Patient |

<!-- .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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