---
title: ‘It will now cost us a battle for life or death; but do be careful t… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It will now cost us a battle for life or death; but do be careful to keep the leaf.’ Who acts: other. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Kari Woodengown, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Kari Woodengown, part 1, sentence 40

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‘It will now cost us a battle for life or death; but do be careful to keep the leaf.’

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**Who acts:** other · **What happens:** cost, be, keep · **To what, where:** battle, us, leaf

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Kari Woodengown, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (other), 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:pg540:29:40
# text = ‘It will now cost us a battle for life or death; but do be careful to keep the leaf.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
5	cost	cost	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	battle	battle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
11	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
17	careful	careful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cost** | future | other | a battle | us |  | now | for life or death | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Theme we=Beneficiary battle=Value |
| 2 | **is** | present · do-support | other *not said here* |  |  |  |  | careful *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **keep** | to-infinitive | other *not said here* | the leaf |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaf=Theme |

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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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