---
title: And even if he could make shoes to perfection they would be no use w… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And even if he could make shoes to perfection they would be no use without the soothing balsam.' Who acts: lord, shoes. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 38, sentence 2

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And even if he could make shoes to perfection they would be no use without the soothing balsam.'

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**Who acts:** lord, shoes · **What happens:** make, be · **To what, where:** shoes, use

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lord, shoes), 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:pg3027:38:2
# text = And even if he could make shoes to perfection they would be no use without the soothing balsam.'
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	even	even	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	shoes	shoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	perfection	perfection	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	acl:relcl	_	_
15	without	without	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	soothing	soothing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	balsam	balsam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | could | lord | shoes |  |  |  | to perfection; without the soothing balsam | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shoe=Product |
| 2 | **is a** | would | shoes *= shoe* | no use |  |  |  |  | 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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