---
title: ‘If you don’t take good care of them,’ says she, ‘your bold head wil… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘If you don’t take good care of them,’ says she, ‘your bold head will be stuck on that pole!’ Who acts: you, pieces. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, sentence 237

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‘If you don’t take good care of them,’ says she, ‘your bold head will be stuck on that pole!’

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**Who acts:** you, pieces · **What happens:** not take, say, stick, care · **To what, where:** good care, mare, bold head, pole · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, pieces), 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:pg540:7:237
# text = ‘If you don’t take good care of them,’ says she, ‘your bold head will be stuck on that pole!’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
7	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
13	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	bold	bold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	stuck	stick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	parataxis	_	_
23	on	on	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	25	det	_	_
25	pole	pole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **take** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · do-support | you | good care of pieces |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent care=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | present |  | mare |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stick** | future · passive |  | your bold head |  | that pole |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme on pole=Destination |
| 4 | **care** |  | pieces *= piece* |  |  |  |  |  | nom care «act intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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