---
title: But Susan answered, ‘There, you see, I always said our cat was a mos… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But Susan answered, ‘There, you see, I always said our cat was a most excellent creature--but you men always think you know best.’ Who acts: Susan, you, I, cat. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/53/50/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The War of the Wolf and the Fox](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/53/) / 50

# The Green Fairy Book, The War of the Wolf and the Fox, sentence 50

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But Susan answered, ‘There, you see, I always said our cat was a most excellent creature--but you men always think you know best.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Susan, you, I, cat · **What happens:** answer, see, say, be, think, know · **To what, where:** excellent creature · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The War of the Wolf and the Fox. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Susan, you, I, cat), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:53:50
# text = But Susan answered, ‘There, you see, I always said our cat was a most excellent creature--but you men always think you know best.’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Susan	Susan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	13	advmod	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
14	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
18	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	19	advmod	_	_
19	excellent	excellent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
24	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nmod:unmarked	_	_
25	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	26	advmod	_	_
26	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
27	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	ccomp	_	_
29	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	28	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Susan |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **see** | present | you |  |  | there |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | I |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past | our cat | a excellent creature |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **think** *speech: other* | present | you |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 6 | **know** | present | you |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/53/49/)
- next →: [sentence 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/53/51/)
- ↑ back to [The War of the Wolf and the Fox](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/53/)