---
title: ‘He might have been able to direct me to the church, for I shall nev… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘He might have been able to direct me to the church, for I shall never find it alone.’ Who acts: griffin, I. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/82/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/) / 82

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 82

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘He might have been able to direct me to the church, for I shall never find it alone.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** griffin, I · **What happens:** be, direct, not find · **To what, where:** me, church

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (griffin, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg5615:22:82
# text = ‘He might have been able to direct me to the church, for I shall never find it alone.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
6	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	direct	direct	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	church	church	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | might · perfect | griffin |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **direct** | to-infinitive | griffin *not said here* | me |  |  |  | to the church | vn supervision-95.2.2-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent i=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **find** | shall | I | church |  |  |  | alone *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 81](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/81/)
- next →: [sentence 83](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/83/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/22/)