---
title: ‘How could I possibly be able to lodge such a great gentleman as you? — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘How could I possibly be able to lodge such a great gentleman as you? Who acts: I. 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 86

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‘How could I possibly be able to lodge such a great gentleman as you?

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, lodge · **To what, where:** great gentleman

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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 (I), 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:pg540:9:86
# text = ‘How could I possibly be able to lodge such a great gentleman as you?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
7	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	lodge	lodge	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	13	det:predet	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | could | I |  |  |  |  | able, possibly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **lodge** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | such great gentleman |  |  |  | as you | vn odge-46-1 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme gentleman=Location |

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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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