---
title: So the next oldest son was willing to show what he could do. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So the next oldest son was willing to show what he could do. Who acts: next oldest son, man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess on the Glass Hill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Princess on the Glass Hill, sentence 7

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So the next oldest son was willing to show what he could do.

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**Who acts:** next oldest son, man · **What happens:** be, show, do · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess on the Glass Hill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (next oldest son, man), 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:pg503:48:7
# text = So the next oldest son was willing to show what he could do.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	oldest	old	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	amod	_	_
5	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	willing	willing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	show	show	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the next oldest son |  |  |  |  | willing *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **show** | to-infinitive | the next oldest son *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | could | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=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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