---
title: ‘But what am I to give you, old Witch; for surely you are not going… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But what am I to give you, old Witch; for surely you are not going to do this for nothing?’ Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tinder-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Tinder-box, sentence 30

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‘But what am I to give you, old Witch; for surely you are not going to do this for nothing?’

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** give, not go, do · **To what, where:** old Witch, you, this

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tinder-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, 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:pg640:46:30
# text = ‘But what am I to give you, old Witch; for surely you are not going to do this for nothing?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
4	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	Witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	obj	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | present | I | old Witch | you |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **go** | present · progressive | you |  |  |  |  | surely *property* | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | this |  |  |  | for nothing | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent this=Eventuality |

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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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