---
title: ‘If you were to climb up and shake down the acorns the pig would pic… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘If you were to climb up and shake down the acorns the pig would pick them up.’ Who acts: you, 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 33

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‘If you were to climb up and shake down the acorns the pig would pick them up.’

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**Who acts:** you, pig · **What happens:** climb up, shake down, pick up · **To what, where:** acorns

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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 (you, 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:pg540:28:33
# text = ‘If you were to climb up and shake down the acorns the pig would pick them up.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	shake	shake	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	acorns	acorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	pig	pig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	pick	pick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl:relcl	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **climb up** | past | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **shake down** | infinitive | you *not said here* | the acorns |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent acorn=Patient |
| 3 | **pick up** | would | the pig | acorns *= acorn* |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Topic |

<!-- .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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