---
title: “If I can’t get my barrel of meal, I shall take one of your children… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “If I can’t get my barrel of meal, I shall take one of your children,” answered the monkey. Who acts: monkey. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 3, sentence 22

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“If I can’t get my barrel of meal, I shall take one of your children,” answered the monkey.

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**Who acts:** monkey · **What happens:** not get, take, answer · **To what, where:** barrel, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (monkey), 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:pg3282:36:22
# text = “If I can’t get my barrel of meal, I shall take one of your children,” answered the monkey.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	barrel	barrel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	meal	meal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	ccomp	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
21	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	monkey	monkey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **get** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | can | the monkey *= monkey* | my barrel of meal |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer barrel=Stimulus |
| 2 | **take** *in a quote* | shall | the monkey *= monkey* | one of your children |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the monkey |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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