---
title: Don’t let us tell him, but if you have a little basket give it to me.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Don’t let us tell him, but if you have a little basket give it to me.’ Who acts: you, us. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 230

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Don’t let us tell him, but if you have a little basket give it to me.’

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**Who acts:** you, us · **What happens:** not let, tell, have, give · **To what, where:** us, Frisk, little basket, basket, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, us), 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:pg540:11:230
# text = Don’t let us tell him, but if you have a little basket give it to me.’
1	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	basket	basket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **let** | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive | us *not said here* |  | Frisk |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | a little basket |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent basket=Patient |
| 4 | **give** | infinitive | us *not said here* | basket | me |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Theme to i=Recipient |

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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 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.

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