---
title: Let us make it as difficult as possible, and if he fails he shall di… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Let us make it as difficult as possible, and if he fails he shall die.’ Who acts: you, us, King. 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 86

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Let us make it as difficult as possible, and if he fails he shall die.’

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**Who acts:** you, us, King · **What happens:** let, make, fail, die · **To what, where:** us, 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 (you, us, King), 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:pg640:14:86
# text = Let us make it as difficult as possible, and if he fails he shall die.’
1	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	_
3	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	xcomp	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	as	as	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
8	possible	possible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	fails	fail	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | imperative | you *not said here* | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | infinitive | us *not said here* | way |  |  |  | difficult *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product |
| 3 | **fail** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | King |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **die** | shall | King |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

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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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