---
title: ‘But the instant breakfast was over they began again their cuckoo-cr… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But the instant breakfast was over they began again their cuckoo-cry of “What will you do?” Who acts: Fairies, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 3, 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 3, sentence 29

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‘But the instant breakfast was over they began again their cuckoo-cry of “What will you do?”

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**Who acts:** Fairies, you · **What happens:** begin, do, cry · **To what, where:** cuckoo cry

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, 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 (Fairies, you), 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:pg7277:38:29
# text = ‘But the instant breakfast was over they began again their cuckoo-cry of “What will you do?”
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	instant	instant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	breakfast	breakfast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	over	over	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	again	again	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
12	cuckoo	cuckoo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	cry	cry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
15	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
16	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	obj	_	_
18	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Fairies *= fairy* | Fairies's cuckoo cry |  |  | again |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cry=Eventuality |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | future | you | Fairies's cuckoo cry |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **cry** |  | Fairies *= fairy* |  |  |  |  |  | nom cry «communication intransitive»: poss=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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