---
title: ‘You must do me the favour,’ replied the fish, ‘to take a scale from… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘You must do me the favour,’ replied the fish, ‘to take a scale from my body, and keep it carefully. Who acts: You. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 2, sentence 63

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‘You must do me the favour,’ replied the fish, ‘to take a scale from my body, and keep it carefully.

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**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** do, reply, take, keep · **To what, where:** favour, me, fish, scale, body

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You), 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:pg640:31:63
# text = ‘You must do me the favour,’ replied the fish, ‘to take a scale from my body, and keep it carefully.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	favour	favour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
10	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	scale	scale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	from	from	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	keep	keep	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	_
26	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | must | You | the favour | me |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | the fish |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent fish=Topic |
| 3 | **take** | to-infinitive |  | a scale |  | my body |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent scale=Theme from body=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **keep** | infinitive |  | scale |  |  |  | carefully *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

<!-- .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 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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