---
title: ‘Give me your left front paw, my little Fox, if you really wish to l… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Give me your left front paw, my little Fox, if you really wish to learn how it’s done.’ Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Marvellous Musician, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Marvellous Musician, sentence 35

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‘Give me your left front paw, my little Fox, if you really wish to learn how it’s done.’

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** give, wish, learn, do · **To what, where:** left front paw, me, side · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Marvellous Musician. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg540:50:35
# text = ‘Give me your left front paw, my little Fox, if you really wish to learn how it’s done.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
5	left	left	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	front	front	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	paw	paw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	Fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	really	really	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	wish	wish	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | imperative | you *not said here* | your left front paw | me |  |  | my little Fox *obl* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient paw=Theme |
| 2 | **wish** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **learn** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** | present · passive |  | side |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |

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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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