---
title: I shall have to tell him what danger I have been in, and how, withou… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I shall have to tell him what danger I have been in, and how, without your help, I should certainly have lost my life. Who acts: I, your. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Watch, sentence 20

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I shall have to tell him what danger I have been in, and how, without your help, I should certainly have lost my life.

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**Who acts:** I, your · **What happens:** have, tell, be, lose, help · **To what, where:** serpent, life · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, your), 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:pg7277:8:20
# text = I shall have to tell him what danger I have been in, and how, without your help, I should certainly have lost my life.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
8	danger	danger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
12	in	in	ADV	RB	_	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
15	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	without	without	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	help	help	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
22	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
23	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	aux	_	_
25	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	parataxis	_	_
26	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | shall | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  | serpent |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | present · perfect |  |  |  |  |  | in *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **lose** | should · perfect | I | my life |  |  |  | without your help; certainly *property* | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Eventuality |
| 5 | **help** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom help «act transitive»: poss=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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