---
title: They must run fast indeed if they were to escape. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They must run fast indeed if they were to escape. Who acts: tops. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/8/98/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 98

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They must run fast indeed if they were to escape.

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**Who acts:** tops · **What happens:** run, escape

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tops), 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:pg3282:8:98
# text = They must run fast indeed if they were to escape.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
5	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	escape	escape	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | must | tops *= top* |  |  |  |  | fast, indeed *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **escape** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | tops *= top* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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