---
title: But he did not dare to bring back the baby, lest the trick should be… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he did not dare to bring back the baby, lest the trick should be found out. Who acts: king. 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.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 26

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But he did not dare to bring back the baby, lest the trick should be found out.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** not dare, not bring back, find out · **To what, where:** baby, trick

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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 (king), 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:pg641:9:26
# text = But he did not dare to bring back the baby, lest the trick should be found out.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	dare	dare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	lest	lest	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	trick	trick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	conj	_	_
18	out	out	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **dare** | past · do-support | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **bring back** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | the baby |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent baby=Theme |
| 3 | **find out** | should · passive |  | the trick |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic |

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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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