---
title: ‘I won’t refuse your request, poor creature,’ said Turritella condes… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I won’t refuse your request, poor creature,’ said Turritella condescendingly. Who acts: I, Turritella, your. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Bird, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Blue Bird, part 4, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I won’t refuse your request, poor creature,’ said Turritella condescendingly.

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**Who acts:** I, Turritella, your · **What happens:** not refuse, say, request · **To what, where:** request · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Bird, 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 (I, Turritella, your), 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:pg7277:5:30
# text = ‘I won’t refuse your request, poor creature,’ said Turritella condescendingly.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	refuse	refuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
6	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	request	request	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	Turritella	Turritella	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
15	condescendingly	condescendingly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **refuse** | future | I | your request  poor creature |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent request=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Turritella |  |  |  |  | condescendingly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **request** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom request «communication transitive»: 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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