---
title: Don’t try to press it open, but oil the hinges with this,’ and the o… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Don’t try to press it open, but oil the hinges with this,’ and the old man gave him a small bottle. Who acts: you, oil hinges. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/40/60/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Enchanted Canary](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/40/) / 60

# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 60

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Don’t try to press it open, but oil the hinges with this,’ and the old man gave him a small bottle.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, oil hinges · **What happens:** not try, press, give · **To what, where:** gate, small bottle, man

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, oil hinges), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:40:60
# text = Don’t try to press it open, but oil the hinges with this,’ and the old man gave him a small bottle.
1	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	n’t	n't	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	try	try	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	press	press	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	oil	oil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	hinges	hinge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	iobj	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **try** | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **press** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | gate |  |  |  | open *property* | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **give** | past | the oil hinges with this | a small bottle | man |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient bottle=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/40/59/)
- next →: [sentence 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/40/61/)
- ↑ back to [The Enchanted Canary](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/40/)