---
title: If he spent a shilling he got back a florin-such an excellent mercha… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If he spent a shilling he got back a florin-such an excellent merchant he was till he died. Who acts: merchant, florin. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/4/69/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 69

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If he spent a shilling he got back a florin-such an excellent merchant he was till he died.

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**Who acts:** merchant, florin · **What happens:** spend, get back, merchant, be · **To what, where:** shilling, excellent merchant

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchant, florin), 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:pg5615:4:69
# text = If he spent a shilling he got back a florin-such an excellent merchant he was till he died.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	spent	spend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	shilling	shilling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
10	florin	florin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	15	det:predet	_	_
13	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	excellent	excellent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spend** | past | merchant | a shilling |  |  |  |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shilling=Asset |
| 2 | **get back** | past | merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **merchant** |  | florin |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | past | merchant | a excellent merchant *not said here* |  |  |  | die *property* | tree rules |

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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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