---
title: ‘Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the future.’ Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Voice of Death, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Voice of Death, sentence 53

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‘Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the future.’

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** give, teach, let · **To what, where:** razor, me, man, people

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Voice of Death. 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:pg540:27:53
# text = ‘Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the future.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	razor	razor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	teach	teach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
14	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
15	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	future	future	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | imperative | you *not said here* | that razor | me |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient razor=Theme |
| 2 | **teach** *speech: other* | future | I |  | man |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **let** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | people |  |  |  | for the future; alone *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent people=Theme for future=Asset |

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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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