---
title: Drive a nail into the threshold, and then I can never pass in or out.” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Drive a nail into the threshold, and then I can never pass in or out.” Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Drive a nail into the threshold, and then I can never pass in or out.”

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** drive, not pass · **To what, where:** nail, threshold

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg3282:20:73
# text = Drive a nail into the threshold, and then I can never pass in or out.”
1	Drive	drive	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	nail	nail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	into	into	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	threshold	threshold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	conj	_	_
14	in	in	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	out	out	ADV	RB	_	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drive** | imperative | you *not said here* | a nail |  | the threshold |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent nail=Theme into threshold=Trajectory |
| 2 | **not** **pass** | can | I |  |  |  | then |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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.

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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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