---
title: If the Governor were to catch sight of you here, he would lead us a… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If the Governor were to catch sight of you here, he would lead us a pretty dance,’ said one. Who acts: 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 172

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If the Governor were to catch sight of you here, he would lead us a pretty dance,’ said one.

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**Who acts:** Governor · **What happens:** catch, lead, say, sight · **To what, where:** sight, us, one, you · **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 (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:pg540:9:172
# text = If the Governor were to catch sight of you here, he would lead us a pretty dance,’ said one.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Governor	Governor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
7	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nmod	_	_
10	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	lead	lead	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
15	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	21	punct	_	_
21	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	parataxis	_	_
22	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | the Governor | sight of you |  | here |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sight=Theme |
| 2 | **lead** | would | Governor | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | one |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent one=Topic |
| 4 | **sight** |  |  | you |  |  |  |  | nom sight «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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