---
title: ‘This is a den of robbers; if they were to come here and find you th… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘This is a den of robbers; if they were to come here and find you they would kill you.’ Who acts: This, brothers. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/4/39/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Six Swans, sentence 39

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‘This is a den of robbers; if they were to come here and find you they would kill you.’

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**Who acts:** This, brothers · **What happens:** be, come, find, kill · **To what, where:** den, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, brothers), 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:pg640:4:39
# text = ‘This is a den of robbers; if they were to come here and find you they would kill you.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	den	den	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
14	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	find	find	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | This | a den |  |  |  | of robbers | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  | here |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **find** | present | brothers *= brother* *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent you=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 4 | **kill** | would | brothers *= brother* | you |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=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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- ← previous: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/4/38/)
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- ↑ back to [The Six Swans](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/4/)