---
title: ‘He has promised to give his daughter to whoever can make a flying s… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘He has promised to give his daughter to whoever can make a flying ship.’ Who acts: Court, whoever. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flying Ship(24), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Flying Ship(24), sentence 16

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‘He has promised to give his daughter to whoever can make a flying ship.’

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**Who acts:** Court, whoever · **What happens:** promise, give, make, fly · **To what, where:** daughter, flying ship

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flying Ship(24). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Court, whoever), 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:pg640:35:16
# text = ‘He has promised to give his daughter to whoever can make a flying ship.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	promised	promise	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	_
9	to	to	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	whoever	whoever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	amod	_	_
15	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | present · perfect | Court |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **give** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Court *not said here* |  | Court's daughter |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Theme |
| 3 | **make** | can | whoever | a flying ship |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset ship=Product |
| 4 | **fly** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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