---
title: If I had to sentence him I should make him perform some very difficu… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If I had to sentence him I should make him perform some very difficult task, under pain of death. Who acts: I, emperor. 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 32

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If I had to sentence him I should make him perform some very difficult task, under pain of death.

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**Who acts:** I, emperor · **What happens:** have, make, perform, pain · **To what, where:** sentence, emperor, difficult task, pain, death

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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 (I, emperor), 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:pg7277:52:32
# text = If I had to sentence him I should make him perform some very difficult task, under pain of death.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	sentence	sentence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	perform	perform	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	det	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	under	under	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I | sentence |  |  |  | emperor *obl* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sentence=Patient |
| 2 | **make** | should | I | emperor |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **perform** | infinitive | emperor *not said here* | some difficult task |  | pain of death |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent task=Theme |
| 4 | **pain** |  |  | death |  |  |  |  | nom pain «state transitive»: of=patient |

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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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