---
title: Now, surely, if he gave a spring he could get in front of it! — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now, surely, if he gave a spring he could get in front of it! Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 94

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Now, surely, if he gave a spring he could get in front of it!

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** give, get · **To what, where:** front

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg3282:6:94
# text = Now, surely, if he gave a spring he could get in front of it!
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | boy |  |  |  | spring |  | vn break\_down-45.8 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **get** | could | boy |  |  | front of ball | now |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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