---
title: You may be certain I was in great pain, but the fear of being killed… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: You may be certain I was in great pain, but the fear of being killed prevented me from making any complaint. Who acts: You, I, fear. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., 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/pg540/8/127/)

<!-- 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 Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/) / 127

# The Red Fairy Book, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., sentence 127

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
You may be certain I was in great pain, but the fear of being killed prevented me from making any complaint.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** You, I, fear · **What happens:** be, kill, prevent, make · **To what, where:** great pain, fear, me, complaint

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, I, fear), 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:pg540:8:127
# text = You may be certain I was in great pain, but the fear of being killed prevented me from making any complaint.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	killed	kill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
17	prevented	prevent	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
20	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
21	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	22	det	_	_
22	complaint	complaint	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | may | You |  |  |  |  | certain *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | I |  |  | great pain |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **kill** | gerund · passive |  | the fear *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» |
| 4 | **prevent** | past | the fear | me |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer i=Theme |
| 5 | **make** | gerund | the fear *not said here* | any complaint |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset complaint=Product |

<!-- .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 126](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/126/)
- next →: [sentence 128](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/128/)
- ↑ back to [The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/8/)