---
title: So before I can listen to your proposal you must kill him and bring… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So before I can listen to your proposal you must kill him and bring me his head.” Who acts: I, you, your. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 116

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So before I can listen to your proposal you must kill him and bring me his head.”

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**Who acts:** I, you, your · **What happens:** listen, kill, bring, propose · **To what, where:** monkey, head, me

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you, your), 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:pg503:28:116
# text = So before I can listen to your proposal you must kill him and bring me his head.”
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	proposal	proposal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	conj	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** | can | I |  |  |  |  | to your proposal | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to proposal=Theme |
| 2 | **kill** | must | you | monkey |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **bring** | infinitive | you *not said here* | monkey's head | me |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent i=Destination head=Theme |
| 4 | **propose** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom proposal «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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