---
title: You must slip into the Emperor’s palace by night and steal the bird… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: You must slip into the Emperor’s palace by night and steal the bird with the cage; but be very careful not to touch the walls as you go out.’ Who acts: You. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 18

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You must slip into the Emperor’s palace by night and steal the bird with the cage; but be very careful not to touch the walls as you go out.’

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**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** slip, steal, be, not touch, go out · **To what, where:** palace, bird, walls

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You), 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:pg7277:52:18
# text = You must slip into the Emperor’s palace by night and steal the bird with the cage; but be very careful not to touch the walls as you go out.’
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	slip	slip	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	into	into	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	Emperor	Emperor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	steal	steal	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	cage	cage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	cop	_	_
21	very	very	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	careful	careful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	touch	touch	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	22	parataxis	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	_
28	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
29	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	go	go	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	advcl	_	_
31	out	out	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **slip** | must | You |  |  | the Emperor's palace | night |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **steal** | present | You *not said here* | the bird |  |  |  | with the cage | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bird=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | infinitive | You *not said here* |  |  |  |  | careful *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **touch** | to-infinitive |  | the walls |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme wall=Co-Theme |
| 5 | **go out** | present | you |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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