---
title: I promised more than I could perform. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I promised more than I could perform. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg3282/31/75/)

<!-- 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 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/31/) / 75

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 75

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I promised more than I could perform.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** promise, perform · **To what, where:** more

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg3282:31:75
# text = I promised more than I could perform.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	obj	_	_
4	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	perform	perform	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | I | more |  |  |  |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent more=Theme |
| 2 | **perform** | could | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «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 74](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/31/74/)
- next →: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/31/76/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/31/)