---
title: ‘My dear children, I am obliged to go to the wars. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My dear children, I am obliged to go to the wars. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig, 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/pg540/12/3/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Enchanted Pig](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/12/) / 3

# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Pig, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘My dear children, I am obliged to go to the wars.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** oblige, go · **To what, where:** dear children, wars

<!-- .vabout -->
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: 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:pg540:12:3
# text = ‘My dear children, I am obliged to go to the wars.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	obliged	oblige	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	wars	war	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **oblige** | present · passive |  | My dear children |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Patient clause=Result |
| 2 | **go** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | the wars |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to war=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/12/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/12/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Enchanted Pig](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/12/)