---
title: ‘We had better turn back to the town, and then you can fetch it.’ — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We had better turn back to the town, and then you can fetch it.’ Who acts: We, you. 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/pg3454/5/70/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 70

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‘We had better turn back to the town, and then you can fetch it.’

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**Who acts:** We, you · **What happens:** have, turn back, fetch · **To what, where:** town

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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 (We, you), 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:pg3454:5:70
# text = ‘We had better turn back to the town, and then you can fetch it.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	_
5	turn	turn	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	csubj	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | We |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **turn back** | infinitive |  |  |  | the town |  |  | vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent to town=Destination |
| 3 | **fetch** | can | you | town |  |  | then |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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 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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