---
title: That cannot be true, of course, but it might be well to give this im… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: That cannot be true, of course, but it might be well to give this impostor a lesson. Who acts: That, course. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 19, 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/pg3282/19/18/)

<!-- 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 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/19/) / 18

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 19, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
That cannot be true, of course, but it might be well to give this impostor a lesson.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** That, course · **What happens:** not be, be, give · **To what, where:** impostor

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, course), 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:pg3282:19:18
# text = That cannot be true, of course, but it might be well to give this impostor a lesson.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
5	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	obl	_	_
8	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
14	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
17	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	impostor	impostor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	lesson	lesson	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | can | That |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | might | course |  |  |  |  | well *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **give** | to-infinitive | course *not said here* | this impostor |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent impostor=Recipient lesson=Theme |

<!-- .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 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/19/17/)
- next →: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/19/19/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/19/)