---
title: “But if you WANT to cry, I will give you something to cry for.” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “But if you WANT to cry, I will give you something to cry for.” Who acts: you, elves. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, 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/pg3282/28/21/)

<!-- 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 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/28/) / 21

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“But if you WANT to cry, I will give you something to cry for.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, elves · **What happens:** want, cry, give · **To what, where:** something, you

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, elves), 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:pg3282:28:21
# text = “But if you WANT to cry, I will give you something to cry for.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	WANT	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	11	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **give** *in a quote* | future | elves *= elf* | something | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient something=Theme |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | elves *= elf* *not said here* | something *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/28/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/28/22/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/28/)