---
title: ‘I cannot fight that giant,’ he cried, looking at the dog with a whi… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I cannot fight that giant,’ he cried, looking at the dog with a white face. Who acts: I, heart. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, 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/pg3454/9/73/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 73

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‘I cannot fight that giant,’ he cried, looking at the dog with a white face.

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**Who acts:** I, heart · **What happens:** not fight, cry, look · **To what, where:** giant

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, heart), 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:pg3454:9:73
# text = ‘I cannot fight that giant,’ he cried, looking at the dog with a white face.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	fight	fight	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	parataxis	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nsubj	_	_
7	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **fight** | can | I | giant |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent giant=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | heart |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | heart *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the dog; with a white face | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at dog=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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