---
title: ‘But,’ answered he, ‘let a man be ever so strong, he cannot carry mo… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But,’ answered he, ‘let a man be ever so strong, he cannot carry more than a hundredweight, and what is that for a king’s daughter?’ Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 19, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 19, sentence 141

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘But,’ answered he, ‘let a man be ever so strong, he cannot carry more than a hundredweight, and what is that for a king’s daughter?’

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** answer, let, be, not carry · **To what, where:** man, more, that · **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 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg5615:19:141
# text = ‘But,’ answered he, ‘let a man be ever so strong, he cannot carry more than a hundredweight, and what is that for a king’s daughter?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
13	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	15	advmod	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
21	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	obj	_	_
22	than	than	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	hundredweight	hundredweight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
27	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	29	obj	_	_
28	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
29	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	obl	_	_
30	for	for	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’s	's	PART	POS	_	32	case	_	_
34	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | man |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive |  | a man |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | infinitive | a man *not said here* |  |  |  | ever | strong *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **carry** | can | man | more |  |  |  | for a king's daughter | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent more=Theme |
| 5 | **is a** | present |  | that |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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