---
title: Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes scatt… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes scattered to the winds! 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 292

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Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes scattered to the winds!

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**What happens:** let, flay, burnt, scatter · **To what, where:** John, slow fire, ashes

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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: 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:pg7277:22:292
# text = Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes scattered to the winds!
1	Let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	compound	_	_
2	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	flayed	flay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	burnt	burnt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	slow	slow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	ashes	ash	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
16	scattered	scatter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	acl	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	winds	wind	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | infinitive |  | John |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **flay** | infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  | alive *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **burnt** | participle |  |  |  | a slow fire and John's ashes |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **scatter** | participle |  | John's ashes *not said here* |  |  |  | to the winds | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme |

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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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