---
title: If the tailor and the coachbuilder were quick he promised to pay the… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If the tailor and the coachbuilder were quick he promised to pay them double. Who acts: tailor, soldier. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 145

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If the tailor and the coachbuilder were quick he promised to pay them double.

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**Who acts:** tailor, soldier · **What happens:** be, promise, pay · **To what, where:** tailor

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tailor, soldier), 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:pg7277:22:145
# text = If the tailor and the coachbuilder were quick he promised to pay them double.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	tailor	tailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	coachbuilder	coachbuilder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	quick	quick	ADV	RB	_	10	advcl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	pay	pay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	double	double	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | the tailor and the coachbuilder |  |  |  |  | quick *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | soldier |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **pay** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | soldier *not said here* | tailor |  |  |  |  | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient double=Asset |

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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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