---
title: We cannot go back to our country; let us land on this desert island… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: We cannot go back to our country; let us land on this desert island and there end our miserable lives.” Who acts: We, us. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 213

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We cannot go back to our country; let us land on this desert island and there end our miserable lives.”

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**Who acts:** We, us · **What happens:** not go back, let, land, end · **To what, where:** us, desert island, miserable lives

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, us), 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:pg503:2:213
# text = We cannot go back to our country; let us land on this desert island and there end our miserable lives.”
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	back	back	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
10	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	land	land	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
15	desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	19	expl	_	_
19	end	end	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
20	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go back** | can | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive |  | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **land** | infinitive | us *not said here* |  |  | this desert island |  |  | vn pocket-9.10-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme on island=Destination |
| 4 | **end** | present |  | our miserable lives |  | there |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality life=Eventuality |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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