---
title: ‘I would do it with pleasure,’ answered the idiot, ‘but if I once op… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I would do it with pleasure,’ answered the idiot, ‘but if I once open the bag they will all fly away.’ Who acts: I, birds. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27, 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/pg3454/27/55/)

<!-- 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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/27/) / 55

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I would do it with pleasure,’ answered the idiot, ‘but if I once open the bag they will all fly away.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, birds · **What happens:** do, answer, open, fly away · **To what, where:** master, idiot, bag

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, birds), 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:pg3454:27:55
# text = ‘I would do it with pleasure,’ answered the idiot, ‘but if I once open the bag they will all fly away.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	pleasure	pleasure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
10	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	idiot	idiot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	19	advmod	_	_
19	open	open	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	advcl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	bag	bag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	all	all	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
26	away	away	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | would | I | master |  |  |  | with pleasure | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  | the idiot |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent idiot=Eventuality |
| 3 | **open** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | I | the bag |  |  |  | once *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bag=Theme |
| 4 | **fly away** | future | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | all, away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=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 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/27/54/)
- next →: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/27/56/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/27/)