---
title: It may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage and I shoul… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage and I should do well to help him.” Who acts: mill, dinner, I. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/45/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Why the Sea Is Salt](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/) / 45

# The Blue Fairy Book, Why the Sea Is Salt, sentence 45

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage and I should do well to help him.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** mill, dinner, I · **What happens:** find, not be, make, do, help · **To what, where:** pottage, mill

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mill, dinner, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:20:45
# text = It may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage and I should do well to help him.”
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	finds	find	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
11	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
13	pottage	pottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
18	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | present | mill |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is** | may | dinner |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **make** | gerund | dinner *not said here* | pottage |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset pottage=Product |
| 4 | **do** | should | I |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **help** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  | mill |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/44/)
- next →: [sentence 46](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/46/)
- ↑ back to [Why the Sea Is Salt](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/)