---
title: If you like, I will give you a herb to break the spell.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If you like, I will give you a herb to break the spell.’ Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Pig, sentence 100

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If you like, I will give you a herb to break the spell.’

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** like, give, break · **To what, where:** herb, you, spell

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg540:12:100
# text = If you like, I will give you a herb to break the spell.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	like	like	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	iobj	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	herb	herb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	spell	spell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **give** | future | I | a herb | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient herb=Theme |
| 3 | **break** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | the spell |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer spell=Patient |

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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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