---
title: 'Before I kill him let me see whether he is fat or thin.' — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Before I kill him let me see whether he is fat or thin.' Who acts: I, you, me, cave. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 18, sentence 33

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'Before I kill him let me see whether he is fat or thin.'

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**Who acts:** I, you, me, cave · **What happens:** kill, let, see, be · **To what, where:** cave, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you, me, cave), 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:pg3027:18:33
# text = 'Before I kill him let me see whether he is fat or thin.'
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	kill	kill	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	fat	fat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	_
13	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	thin	thin	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** | present | I | cave |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **let** | imperative | you *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **see** | infinitive | me *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is** | present | cave |  |  |  |  | fat *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | cave *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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