---
title: ‘Tell your slave,’ said he, ‘to carry this wherever you please, but… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Tell your slave,’ said he, ‘to carry this wherever you please, but on no account to open it. Who acts: Fairy. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3, sentence 15

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‘Tell your slave,’ said he, ‘to carry this wherever you please, but on no account to open it.

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**Who acts:** Fairy · **What happens:** tell, say, carry, open · **To what, where:** slave, this · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fairy), 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:pg540:25:15
# text = ‘Tell your slave,’ said he, ‘to carry this wherever you please, but on no account to open it.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
3	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	slave	slave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
13	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	obj	_	_
14	wherever	wherever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
16	please	please	INTJ	UH	_	14	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	account	account	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	open	open	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | infinitive |  | your slave |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent slave=Recipient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Fairy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **carry** | to-infinitive | Fairy *not said here* | this |  |  |  | wherever *property* | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent this=Theme |
| 4 | **open** | to-infinitive | Fairy *not said here* | slave |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location it=Theme |

<!-- .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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