---
title: ‘Why not, indeed, if we can strike a bargain?’ said the other. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Why not, indeed, if we can strike a bargain?’ said the other. Who acts: we, other. 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 47

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‘Why not, indeed, if we can strike a bargain?’ said the other.

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**Who acts:** we, other · **What happens:** not strike, say · **To what, where:** bargain · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (we, other), 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:pg641:9:47
# text = ‘Why not, indeed, if we can strike a bargain?’ said the other.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	strike	strike	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bargain	bargain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **strike** *a condition, not said to happen* | can | we | a bargain |  |  |  | indeed *property* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bargain=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the other |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=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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