---
title: ‘Yes; if you can do that I will do my best for you,’ said the Govern… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Yes; if you can do that I will do my best for you,’ said the Governor. Who acts: you, I, Governor. 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 161

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‘Yes; if you can do that I will do my best for you,’ said the Governor.

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**Who acts:** you, I, Governor · **What happens:** do, say · **To what, where:** best · **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, I, Governor), 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:pg540:9:161
# text = ‘Yes; if you can do that I will do my best for you,’ said the Governor.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	11	obj	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Governor	Governor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | future | I | my best |  |  |  | for you | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Eventuality |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Governor |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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