---
title: It is only possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the p… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It is only possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the palm of my hand. Who acts: It, souls. 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 308

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It is only possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the palm of my hand.

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**Who acts:** It, souls · **What happens:** be, cure · **To what, where:** people

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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 (It, souls), 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:pg7277:22:308
# text = It is only possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the palm of my hand.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	possible	possible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	cure	cure	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	csubj	_	_
7	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
8	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	souls	soul	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
10	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	as	as	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	clean	clean	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	acl:relcl	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	palm	palm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | It |  |  |  |  | possible *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cure** | to-infinitive |  | people |  |  |  |  | vn free-10.6.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Causer people=Source |
| 3 | **is** | present | souls |  |  |  |  | as the palm of my hand; clean *property* | tree rules |

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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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