---
title: Perhaps he’ll be killed; but then if he isn’t, he’ll never give us t… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Perhaps he’ll be killed; but then if he isn’t, he’ll never give us these beauties as wives.’ Who acts: rope. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Norka, sentence 78

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Perhaps he’ll be killed; but then if he isn’t, he’ll never give us these beauties as wives.’

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**Who acts:** rope · **What happens:** kill, not give · **To what, where:** rope, beauties, us

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (rope), 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:pg540:13:78
# text = Perhaps he’ll be killed; but then if he isn’t, he’ll never give us these beauties as wives.’
1	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	killed	kill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
8	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
18	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	beauties	beauty	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
21	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** | future · passive |  | rope |  |  |  | perhaps *property* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **give** | future | rope | this beauties | us |  | then | as wives | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent we=Recipient beauty=Theme |

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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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