---
title: The man did tell him, and the youth thought it would be easy enough… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The man did tell him, and the youth thought it would be easy enough to do it. Who acts: man, youth. 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 111

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The man did tell him, and the youth thought it would be easy enough to do it.

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**Who acts:** man, youth · **What happens:** tell, think, be, do · **To what, where:** house, youth · **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 (man, youth), 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:pg540:9:111
# text = The man did tell him, and the youth thought it would be easy enough to do it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|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	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	expl	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
14	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	_
15	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	csubj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	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* | past · do-support | the man |  | house |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the youth |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | would |  |  |  |  |  | easy, enough *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive |  | youth |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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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