---
title: If it holds water I will marry again, but if it doesn’t I won’t.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If it holds water I will marry again, but if it doesn’t I won’t.’ Who acts: boot, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Dwarfs, part 1, sentence 10

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If it holds water I will marry again, but if it doesn’t I won’t.’

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**Who acts:** boot, I · **What happens:** hold, marry · **To what, where:** water

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, 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 (boot, 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:pg540:37:10
# text = If it holds water I will marry again, but if it doesn’t I won’t.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	holds	hold	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	_
8	again	again	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | present | boot | water |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme |
| 2 | **marry** | future | I | water *not said here* |  |  | again |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient |

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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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