---
title: They say you are a just man; then why not entrust this quest to one… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They say you are a just man; then why not entrust this quest to one of them? Who acts: spurs, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3, sentence 19

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They say you are a just man; then why not entrust this quest to one of them?

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**Who acts:** spurs, you · **What happens:** say, be, not entrust · **To what, where:** man, quest, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spurs, 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:pg641:40:19
# text = They say you are a just man; then why not entrust this quest to one of them?
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	just	just	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
10	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	entrust	entrust	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
13	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
14	quest	quest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | spurs *= spur* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | you | a man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **entrust** | infinitive | spurs *= spur* *not said here* | this quest | one of spurs |  | then |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent quest=Theme to one=Recipient |

<!-- .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 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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