---
title: ‘I will give him some impossible tasks to perform; that will be the… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I will give him some impossible tasks to perform; that will be the best way of getting rid of him.’ Who acts: I, that, best way. 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 80

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‘I will give him some impossible tasks to perform; that will be the best way of getting rid of him.’

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**Who acts:** I, that, best way · **What happens:** give, perform, be, get · **To what, where:** impossible tasks, King, best way

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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 (I, that, best way), 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:pg640:35:80
# text = ‘I will give him some impossible tasks to perform; that will be the best way of getting rid of him.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
7	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	tasks	task	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	perform	perform	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	nsubj	_	_
13	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	17	amod	_	_
17	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	_
18	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
19	getting	get	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	acl	_	_
20	rid	rid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | future | I | some impossible tasks | King |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient task=Theme |
| 2 | **perform** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | some impossible tasks *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | future | that | the best way |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **get** | gerund | the best way *not said here* |  |  |  |  | rid *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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