---
title: ‘I could manage very well alone with three, but if there were more,… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I could manage very well alone with three, but if there were more, I might not have time to kill them all before they ran away.’ Who acts: I, more, Jonas. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 136

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‘I could manage very well alone with three, but if there were more, I might not have time to kill them all before they ran away.’

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**Who acts:** I, more, Jonas · **What happens:** manage, be, not have, kill, run away · **To what, where:** Jonas

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, more, Jonas), 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:pg3454:7:136
# text = ‘I could manage very well alone with three, but if there were more, I might not have time to kill them all before they ran away.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	manage	manage	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
7	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	14	expl	_	_
14	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
15	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
21	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl	_	_
24	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	all	all	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
26	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
27	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
29	away	away	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **manage** | could | I |  |  |  |  | with three; alone, well *property* | vn cope-83-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent with three=Theme |
| 2 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | more |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **have** | might | I |  |  |  | time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **kill** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | Jonas *= jona* |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 5 | **run away** | past | Jonas *= jona* |  |  |  |  | all, away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «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 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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