---
title: If a boy is born to you, you must give him to me!’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If a boy is born to you, you must give him to me!’ Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 128

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If a boy is born to you, you must give him to me!’

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** bear, give · **To what, where:** boy, you, brother

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg641:41:128
# text = If a boy is born to you, you must give him to me!’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	advcl	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** *a condition, not said to happen* | present · passive |  | a boy | you |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **give** | must | you |  | brother |  |  | to me | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Theme to i=Recipient |

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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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