---
title: ‘How so?’ says the knight; ‘it is impossible for him to escape.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘How so?’ says the knight; ‘it is impossible for him to escape.’ Who acts: Thief. 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.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., sentence 85

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‘How so?’ says the knight; ‘it is impossible for him to escape.’

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**Who acts:** Thief · **What happens:** say, be, escape · **To what, where:** knight · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Thief), 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:pg540:8:85
# text = ‘How so?’ says the knight; ‘it is impossible for him to escape.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
6	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	knight	knight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	expl	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	_
14	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	escape	escape	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present |  | the knight |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent knight=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **escape** | to-infinitive | Thief |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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