---
title: “If you can’t go to your dinner your dinner shall come to you,” and… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “If you can’t go to your dinner your dinner shall come to you,” and nodding a farewell to the lion she went back to the donkey. Who acts: you, dinner. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, 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/pg3454/5/106/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 106

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“If you can’t go to your dinner your dinner shall come to you,” and nodding a farewell to the lion she went back to the donkey.

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**Who acts:** you, dinner · **What happens:** not go, come, nod, go back · **To what, where:** you, dinner, farewell, lion

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, dinner), 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:pg3454:5:106
# text = “If you can’t go to your dinner your dinner shall come to you,” and nodding a farewell to the lion she went back to the donkey.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	nodding	nod	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	farewell	farewell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
25	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	acl:relcl	_	_
27	back	back	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
28	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	donkey	donkey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **come** *in a quote* | shall | your dinner |  | you | your dinner |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location PP.destination»: agent=Theme to dinner=Initial\_Location to you=Destination |
| 3 | **nod** | gerund | you *not said here* | a farewell | the lion |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent farewell=Theme to lion=Recipient |
| 4 | **go back** | past | dinner | the lion *not said here* |  |  |  | to the donkey | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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**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.

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