---
title: To be sure, the wolves of the forest will devour us to-night, if you… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: To be sure, the wolves of the forest will devour us to-night, if you refuse us to lie here; and so, we would rather the gentleman should eat us. Who acts: wolves, you, gentleman. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"], with its dependency tree and the p
---

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# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"\], sentence 88

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
To be sure, the wolves of the forest will devour us to-night, if you refuse us to lie here; and so, we would rather the gentleman should eat us.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wolves, you, gentleman · **What happens:** be, devour, refuse, not lie, eat · **To what, where:** us

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Upon Earth"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wolves, you, gentleman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg29021:493`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg29021:14:88
# text = To be sure, the wolves of the forest will devour us to-night, if you refuse us to lie here; and so, we would rather the gentleman should eat us.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
2	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	cop	_	_
3	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	advcl	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	wolves	wolf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	devour	devour	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	_
15	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	refuse	refuse	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
20	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
23	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	22	advmod	_	_
24	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	30	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
26	so	so	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
29	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	11	conj	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nsubj	_	_
33	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	34	aux	_	_
34	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	30	ccomp	_	_
35	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	34	obj	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | to-infinitive | the wolves of the forest *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **devour** | future | the wolves of the forest | us |  |  | night |  | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Patient |
| 3 | **refuse** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **lie** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  | here |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **eat** | should | the gentleman | us |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Project Gutenberg book 29021 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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