---
title: ‘I’m so thirsty, sister; if I did but know where to find a little st… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I’m so thirsty, sister; if I did but know where to find a little stream, I’d go and have a drink. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister, 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/pg540/10/12/)

<!-- 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 Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [Brother and Sister](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/10/) / 12

# The Red Fairy Book, Brother and Sister, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I’m so thirsty, sister; if I did but know where to find a little stream, I’d go and have a drink.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, know, find, have, go · **To what, where:** sister, little stream, drink · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg540:10:12
# text = ‘I’m so thirsty, sister; if I did but know where to find a little stream, I’d go and have a drink.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	thirsty	thirsty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
14	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	16	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	stream	stream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’d	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
23	go	go	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	22	ccomp	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	have	have	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	drink	drink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | I | sister |  |  |  | thirsty *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **know** | past · do-support | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **find** | to-infinitive |  | a little stream |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stream=Topic |
| 4 | **have** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **go** | infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **have** | infinitive | I *not said here* | a drink |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent drink=Patient |

<!-- .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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/10/11/)
- next →: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/10/13/)
- ↑ back to [Brother and Sister](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/10/)