---
title: He was told that he must devise some plan for getting rid of this te… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was told that he must devise some plan for getting rid of this terrible person. Who acts: steward, plan. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 45

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He was told that he must devise some plan for getting rid of this terrible person.

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**Who acts:** steward, plan · **What happens:** tell, devise, get · **To what, where:** steward, plan · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steward, plan), 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:pg5615:13:45
# text = He was told that he must devise some plan for getting rid of this terrible person.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	devise	devise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
8	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	det	_	_
9	plan	plan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	getting	get	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
12	rid	rid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
15	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 · passive |  | steward |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **devise** | must | steward | some plan |  |  |  |  | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plan=Patient |
| 3 | **get** | gerund | some plan *not said here* |  |  |  |  | rid *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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