---
title: ‘If Walter would listen to my advice, and boast a little less, and d… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘If Walter would listen to my advice, and boast a little less, and do a little more,’ said Jonas, consolingly. Who acts: Walter, Jonas. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 8, 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/pg3454/8/93/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 93

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‘If Walter would listen to my advice, and boast a little less, and do a little more,’ said Jonas, consolingly.

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**Who acts:** Walter, Jonas · **What happens:** listen, boast, do, say · **To what, where:** more · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Walter, 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:pg3454:8:93
# text = ‘If Walter would listen to my advice, and boast a little less, and do a little more,’ said Jonas, consolingly.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	Walter	Walter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	advice	advice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	boast	boast	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	obl	_	_
14	less	less	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	obl:unmarked	_	_
20	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
23	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
24	Jonas	Jonas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	consolingly	consolingly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	23	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | Walter |  |  |  |  | to my advice | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to advice=Theme |
| 2 | **boast** *speech: other* | present |  |  |  |  |  | less *property* | vn complain-37.8 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **do** | present |  | more |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent more=Eventuality |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Jonas |  |  |  |  | consolingly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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