---
title: But Trusty John held him back, and said: “I promised your father bef… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But Trusty John held him back, and said: “I promised your father before his death that you shouldn’t see what that room contains. Who acts: Trusty John, you, room, king. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Trusty John, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But Trusty John held him back, and said: “I promised your father before his death that you shouldn’t see what that room contains.

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**Who acts:** Trusty John, you, room, king · **What happens:** hold back, say, promise, not see, contain, die · **To what, where:** king, father, death · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Trusty John, you, room, king), 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:pg503:41:18
# text = But Trusty John held him back, and said: “I promised your father before his death that you shouldn’t see what that room contains.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	Trusty	Trusty	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	before	before	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	obj	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl:relcl	_	_
24	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	27	obj	_	_
25	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	26	det	_	_
26	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
27	contains	contain	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold back** | past | Trusty John | king |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Trusty John *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **promise** *speech: promise* *in a quote* | past | Trusty John *= john* |  | your father |  | before king's death |  | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent father=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **see** *in a quote* | should | you | king's death |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **contain** *in a quote* | present | that room |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |
| 6 | **die** *in a quote* |  | king |  |  |  |  |  | nom death «event 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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