---
title: What can a dog be to you, that you should give your life for him lik… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What can a dog be to you, that you should give your life for him like this? Who acts: dog, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1, 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/pg641/9/15/)

<!-- 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 Grateful Prince, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/9/) / 15

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
What can a dog be to you, that you should give your life for him like this?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** dog, you · **What happens:** be, give · **To what, where:** life

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dog, you), 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:pg641:9:15
# text = What can a dog be to you, that you should give your life for him like this?
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obl	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	1	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
13	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	_
17	like	like	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | can | a dog |  |  |  |  | to you | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | should | you | your life |  |  |  | for dog; like this | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent life=Theme for he=Asset |

<!-- .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 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/9/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/9/16/)
- ↑ back to [The Grateful Prince, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/9/)