---
title: Oh, well, it will serve to light a fire at which I can warm myself;… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Oh, well, it will serve to light a fire at which I can warm myself; so things might be worse after all.' Who acts: use, I, things. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31, 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/pg3027/31/77/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 31, sentence 77

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Oh, well, it will serve to light a fire at which I can warm myself; so things might be worse after all.'

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**Who acts:** use, I, things · **What happens:** serve, light, warm, be · **To what, where:** fire, myself

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (use, I, things), 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:pg3027:31:77
# text = Oh, well, it will serve to light a fire at which I can warm myself; so things might be worse after all.'
1	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	well	well	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	light	light	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obl	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	warm	warm	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
17	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
20	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
21	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	cop	_	_
23	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	conj	_	_
24	after	after	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **serve** | future | use |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **light** | to-infinitive | use *not said here* | a fire |  |  |  |  | vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fire=Product |
| 3 | **warm** | can | I | myself |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent myself=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | might | things |  |  |  | after all | bad *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 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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