---
title: “If I let her go he must pay me a thousand head of cattle in exchang… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “If I let her go he must pay me a thousand head of cattle in exchange,” replied the old woman. Who acts: old woman, Thakane, Masilo. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/50/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/) / 50

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 50

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“If I let her go he must pay me a thousand head of cattle in exchange,” replied the old woman.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old woman, Thakane, Masilo · **What happens:** let, go, pay, reply · **To what, where:** Thakane, thousand head, old woman, exchange · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman, Thakane, Masilo), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3282:16:50
# text = “If I let her go he must pay me a thousand head of cattle in exchange,” replied the old woman.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	pay	pay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	cattle	cattle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	exchange	exchange	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
20	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | the old woman *= woman* | Thakane |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | infinitive | Thakane *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **pay** *in a quote* | must | Masilo | a thousand head of cattle | the old woman *= woman* | exchange |  |  | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient head=Asset |
| 4 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/49/)
- next →: [sentence 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/51/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/)