---
title: ‘I want to make my pig eat some acorns, and I can’t get him to go up… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I want to make my pig eat some acorns, and I can’t get him to go up the tree.’ Who acts: I, pig. 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 32

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‘I want to make my pig eat some acorns, and I can’t get him to go up the tree.’

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**Who acts:** I, pig · **What happens:** want, make, eat, not get, go up · **To what, where:** acorns, pig, tree

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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 (I, pig), 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:pg540:28:32
# text = ‘I want to make my pig eat some acorns, and I can’t get him to go up the tree.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	pig	pig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	eat	eat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
9	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	_
10	acorns	acorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|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	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
20	up	up	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	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 | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **make** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 3 | **eat** | present | my pig | some acorns |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent acorn=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **get** | can | I | pig |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **go up** | to-infinitive | pig *not said here* | the tree |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V NP.extent PP.source PP.goal»: agent=Patient tree=Extent |

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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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