---
title: The puma understood that it was useless trying to make the monkey do… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The puma understood that it was useless trying to make the monkey do as he wished, so he chose a shallow place and began to swim across. Who acts: puma, trying, monkey. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4, with its dependency tree and the
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4, sentence 36

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The puma understood that it was useless trying to make the monkey do as he wished, so he chose a shallow place and began to swim across.

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**Who acts:** puma, trying, monkey · **What happens:** understand, be, try, make, do, wish · **To what, where:** monkey, shallow place

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (puma, trying, monkey), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3282:3340`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3282:37:36
# text = The puma understood that it was useless trying to make the monkey do as he wished, so he chose a shallow place and began to swim across.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	puma	puma	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	understood	understand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	expl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	_
8	trying	try	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	csubj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	monkey	monkey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
14	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	chose	choose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	shallow	shallow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	across	across	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **understand** | past | the puma |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | past | trying |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **try** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **make** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | the monkey |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **do** *not said to happen* | infinitive | the monkey *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **wish** | past | puma |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 7 | **choose** | past | puma | a shallow place |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent place=Theme |
| 8 | **begin** | past | puma *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 9 | **swim** | to-infinitive | puma *not said here* |  |  |  |  | across *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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