---
title: ‘Would you believe that I have had the greatest difficulty in preven… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Would you believe that I have had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from throwing the club into the moon?’ Who acts: you, I, greatest difficulty. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 119

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‘Would you believe that I have had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from throwing the club into the moon?’

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**Who acts:** you, I, greatest difficulty · **What happens:** believe, have, prevent, throw · **To what, where:** greatest difficulty, man, club, moon · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I, greatest difficulty), 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:pg641:13:119
# text = ‘Would you believe that I have had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from throwing the club into the moon?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	greatest	great	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	11	amod	_	_
11	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	preventing	prevent	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
16	throwing	throw	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	club	club	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	into	into	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **believe** | would | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **have** | present · perfect | I | the greatest difficulty |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent difficulty=Patient |
| 3 | **prevent** | gerund | the greatest difficulty *not said here* | man |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer he=Theme |
| 4 | **throw** | gerund | the greatest difficulty *not said here* | the club |  |  |  | into the moon *result* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Causer club=Theme into moon=Result |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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