---
title: ‘I couldn’t have done it; but I will soon learn how to!’ — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I couldn’t have done it; but I will soon learn how to!’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 182

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‘I couldn’t have done it; but I will soon learn how to!’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not do, learn · **To what, where:** pocket

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg640:50:182
# text = ‘I couldn’t have done it; but I will soon learn how to!’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
6	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
13	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** | could · perfect | I | pocket |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 2 | **learn** | future | I |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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