---
title: ‘We want to load the cart with our walnuts, but we can’t manage to d… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We want to load the cart with our walnuts, but we can’t manage to do it.’ Who acts: We. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Sillies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Six Sillies, sentence 26

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‘We want to load the cart with our walnuts, but we can’t manage to do it.’

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**Who acts:** We · **What happens:** want, load, not manage, not do · **To what, where:** cart

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We), 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:pg540:28:26
# text = ‘We want to load the cart with our walnuts, but we can’t manage to do it.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	load	load	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cart	cart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	walnuts	walnut	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	manage	manage	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** | present | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **load** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | We *not said here* | the cart |  |  |  | with our walnuts | vn spray-9.7-2 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: agent=Agent cart=Destination with walnut=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **manage** | can | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **not** **do** | to-infinitive | we *not said here* | cart |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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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