---
title: 'Well, I must see if I can't help you,' answered the frog. ' — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Well, I must see if I can't help you,' answered the frog. ' Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 28, sentence 6

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'Well, I must see if I can't help you,' answered the frog. '

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** see, not help, answer · **To what, where:** you, frog

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg3027:28:6
# text = 'Well, I must see if I can't help you,' answered the frog. '
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
15	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	frog	frog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
19	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | must | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **not** **help** *a condition, not said to happen* | can | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | the frog |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent frog=Eventuality |

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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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