---
title: Prepare me a ship of which the half-rotten timbers shall be painted… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Prepare me a ship of which the half-rotten timbers shall be painted black, let the sails be in rags, and the sailors infirm and sickly. Who acts: you, sails, sailors. 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 99

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Prepare me a ship of which the half-rotten timbers shall be painted black, let the sails be in rags, and the sailors infirm and sickly.

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**Who acts:** you, sails, sailors · **What happens:** prepare, paint, let, be, infirm · **To what, where:** ship, me, rotten timbers, sails, rags

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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 (you, sails, sailors), 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:pg503:2:99
# text = Prepare me a ship of which the half-rotten timbers shall be painted black, let the sails be in rags, and the sailors infirm and sickly.
1	Prepare	prepare	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	obl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
8	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	rotten	rotten	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	timbers	timber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	painted	paint	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
15	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	sails	sail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
20	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	rags	rag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	sailors	sailor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
27	infirm	infirm	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	parataxis	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	sickly	sickly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prepare** | imperative | you *not said here* | a ship | me |  |  |  | vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary ship=Product |
| 2 | **paint** | shall · passive |  | the rotten timbers |  |  |  | of a ship; black *property* | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.destination»: subject=Destination |
| 3 | **let** | infinitive | you *not said here* | the sails |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** | infinitive | the sails *not said here* |  |  | rags |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in rag=Location |
| 5 | **infirm** | present | the sailors |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 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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