---
title: If any big girl of fourteen reads this preface, let her insist on be… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If any big girl of fourteen reads this preface, let her insist on being presented with ‘Five Old Friends.’ Who acts: big girl, you, girl. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, 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/pg3454/1/43/)

<!-- 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 Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/1/) / 43

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If any big girl of fourteen reads this preface, let her insist on being presented with ‘Five Old Friends.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** big girl, you, girl · **What happens:** read, let, insist, present · **To what, where:** preface, girl

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (big girl, you, girl), 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:pg3454:1:43
# text = If any big girl of fourteen reads this preface, let her insist on being presented with ‘Five Old Friends.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
2	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	det	_	_
3	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	fourteen	fourteen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nmod	_	_
7	reads	read	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
8	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	preface	preface	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
11	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	insist	insist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	presented	present	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	xcomp	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	Five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
20	Old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	Friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **read** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | any big girl of fourteen | this preface |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent preface=Topic |
| 2 | **let** | imperative | you *not said here* | girl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **insist** *speech: other* | infinitive | girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **present** | gerund · passive | girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with Five Old Friends | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP-Fulfilling PP.theme»: with friend=Theme |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/1/42/)
- next →: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/1/44/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/1/)