---
title: ‘But how can I come up?’ said the ogre, ‘I see no door, and I could… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But how can I come up?’ said the ogre, ‘I see no door, and I could not possibly climb that tower.’ Who acts: I. 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 98

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‘But how can I come up?’ said the ogre, ‘I see no door, and I could not possibly climb that tower.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** come up, say, see, not climb · **To what, where:** ogre, door, tower · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (I), 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:pg641:41:98
# text = ‘But how can I come up?’ said the ogre, ‘I see no door, and I could not possibly climb that tower.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	ogre	ogre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
17	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
22	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
24	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	conj	_	_
26	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	27	det	_	_
27	tower	tower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come up** | can | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the ogre |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **see** | present | I | no door |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer door=Stimulus |
| 4 | **not** **climb** | could | I | that tower |  |  |  | possibly *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location tower=Theme |

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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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