---
title: “I have an important piece of business to do, and only this journey… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I have an important piece of business to do, and only this journey makes it possible. Who acts: old man, journey. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, 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/pg3282/2/104/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 104

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“I have an important piece of business to do, and only this journey makes it possible.

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**Who acts:** old man, journey · **What happens:** have, do, make · **To what, where:** important piece, piece

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, journey), 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:pg3282:2:104
# text = “I have an important piece of business to do, and only this journey makes it possible.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	important	important	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
15	journey	journey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	possible	possible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | present | the old man *= man* | a important piece of business |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent piece=Patient |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the old man *= man* *not said here* | a important piece of business *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **make** *in a quote* | present | this journey | piece |  |  |  | possible *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product |

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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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