---
title: ‘I will then give you a riddle,’ he said; ‘if you guess it, you shal… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I will then give you a riddle,’ he said; ‘if you guess it, you shall be free and out of my power.’ Who acts: I, One, you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I will then give you a riddle,’ he said; ‘if you guess it, you shall be free and out of my power.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, One, you · **What happens:** give, say, guess, be · **To what, where:** riddle, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, One, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:9:22
# text = ‘I will then give you a riddle,’ he said; ‘if you guess it, you shall be free and out of my power.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
5	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	riddle	riddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	guess	guess	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
20	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	cop	_	_
23	free	free	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
25	out	out	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | future | I | a riddle | you |  | then |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient riddle=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | One |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **guess** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | riddle |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | shall | you |  |  |  |  | free *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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