---
title: If one is fighting, you know, one cannot stop to pick one’s way. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If one is fighting, you know, one cannot stop to pick one’s way. Who acts: one, you. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 62

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If one is fighting, you know, one cannot stop to pick one’s way.

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**Who acts:** one, you · **What happens:** fight, know, not stop, pick · **To what, where:** one way

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one, you), 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:pg3282:12:62
# text = If one is fighting, you know, one cannot stop to pick one’s way.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	fighting	fight	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	pick	pick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fight** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · progressive | one |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **know** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **stop** | can | one |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **pick** | to-infinitive | one *not said here* | one way |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Patient |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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