---
title: ‘Very well,’ she replied, ‘if I’m not to be told, of course I don’t… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Very well,’ she replied, ‘if I’m not to be told, of course I don’t want to know anything about it.’ Who acts: wife, I. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Lads, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Lads, sentence 26

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‘Very well,’ she replied, ‘if I’m not to be told, of course I don’t want to know anything about it.’

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**Who acts:** wife, I · **What happens:** reply, be, not tell, not want, know · **To what, where:** anything · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Lads. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, 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:pg7277:49:26
# text = ‘Very well,’ she replied, ‘if I’m not to be told, of course I don’t want to know anything about it.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	23	advmod	_	_
19	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	fixed	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	conj	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	_
26	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	25	obj	_	_
27	about	about	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | wife |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V» |
| 4 | **not** **want** | present · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 5 | **know** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | anything |  |  |  | about course | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |

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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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