---
title: “Brother,” replied the man, “if he is yours, take him.” — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Brother,” replied the man, “if he is yours, take him.” Who acts: Brother, man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Finest Liar in the World, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/3/30/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Finest Liar in the World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/3/) / 30

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Finest Liar in the World, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Brother,” replied the man, “if he is yours, take him.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Brother, man · **What happens:** reply, be, take · **To what, where:** man, yours · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Finest Liar in the World. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Brother, man), 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:pg641:3:30
# text = “Brother,” replied the man, “if he is yours, take him.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	yours	your	PRON	PRP	Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Brother | the man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | man | yours |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **take** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | man |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument he=Destination |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/3/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/3/31/)
- ↑ back to [The Finest Liar in the World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/3/)