---
title: “To be sure I can,” said the mason, turning back, and in a few minut… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “To be sure I can,” said the mason, turning back, and in a few minutes the hole was bored. Who acts: mason, hole. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/7/62/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 62

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“To be sure I can,” said the mason, turning back, and in a few minutes the hole was bored.

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**Who acts:** mason, hole · **What happens:** be, say, turn back · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mason, hole), 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:pg2435:7:62
# text = “To be sure I can,” said the mason, turning back, and in a few minutes the hole was bored.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	To	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	mason	mason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	turning	turn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
14	back	back	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	bored	bored	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the mason |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **turn back** | gerund | the mason *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | the hole |  |  |  | minute | bored *property* | tree rules |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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