---
title: If we could only get him out of the way we might succeed better.’ — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If we could only get him out of the way we might succeed better.’ Who acts: we. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 1, sentence 11

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If we could only get him out of the way we might succeed better.’

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** get, succeed · **To what, where:** Ferko, way

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg640:14:11
# text = If we could only get him out of the way we might succeed better.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	out	out	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	succeed	succeed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
14	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | could | we | Ferko |  | the way |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 2 | **succeed** | might | we | the way *not said here* |  |  |  | good *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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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