---
title: ‘Go you on in front, old man, with our youngest; I will give the eld… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Go you on in front, old man, with our youngest; I will give the elder girl work to keep her from being dull in our absence.’ Who acts: you, I, witch, our. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 29

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‘Go you on in front, old man, with our youngest; I will give the elder girl work to keep her from being dull in our absence.’

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**Who acts:** you, I, witch, our · **What happens:** go on, give, keep, be, absent · **To what, where:** you, front, elder girl work, witch, absence

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch. 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, witch, our), 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:pg540:14:29
# text = ‘Go you on in front, old man, with our youngest; I will give the elder girl work to keep her from being dull in our absence.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Go	go	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	parataxis	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
19	elder	elder	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
20	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
24	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	from	from	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	27	cop	_	_
27	dull	dull	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	xcomp	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
30	absence	absence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go on** | imperative | you *not said here* | you |  | front and old man |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | future | I | the elder girl work |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Theme |
| 3 | **keep** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | witch |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | gerund | witch *not said here* |  |  | our absence |  | dull *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **absent** |  | our |  |  |  |  |  | nom absence «state transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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