---
title: I cannot help her; my gifts can be given but once.’ — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I cannot help her; my gifts can be given but once.’ Who acts: I, my. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Fairy Gifts, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Fairy Gifts, sentence 20

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I cannot help her; my gifts can be given but once.’

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**Who acts:** I, my · **What happens:** not help, give, gift · **To what, where:** Fairy, gifts

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Fairy Gifts. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, my), 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:pg7277:10:20
# text = I cannot help her; my gifts can be given but once.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	gifts	gift	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	given	give	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **help** | can | I |  | Fairy |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **give** | can · passive |  | my gifts |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **gift** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom gift «possession transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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