---
title: Why, we can’t even fly yet; what can we do but die of hunger?’ — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Why, we can’t even fly yet; what can we do but die of hunger?’ Who acts: we. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 35

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Why, we can’t even fly yet; what can we do but die of hunger?’

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** not fly, do, die

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg7277:50:35
# text = Why, we can’t even fly yet; what can we do but die of hunger?’
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
6	even	even	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	hunger	hunger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **fly** | can | we |  |  |  | yet |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **do** | can | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **die** | infinitive | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of hunger | vn die-42.4-1 «NP V PP.cause»: agent=Patient of hunger=Causer |

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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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