---
title: ‘You may tell him from me that he must first give me some proof of t… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You may tell him from me that he must first give me some proof of this. Who acts: You, man. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 108

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‘You may tell him from me that he must first give me some proof of this.

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**Who acts:** You, man · **What happens:** tell, give, proof · **To what, where:** man, proof, me, this · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, man), 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:pg540:9:108
# text = ‘You may tell him from me that he must first give me some proof of this.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	12	advmod	_	_
12	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
13	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	det	_	_
15	proof	proof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | may | You |  | man |  |  | from me | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **give** | must | man | some proof of this | me |  |  | first *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient proof=Theme |
| 3 | **proof** |  |  | this |  |  |  |  | nom proof «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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