---
title: The young man promised to do his best, and his conduct during three… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The young man promised to do his best, and his conduct during three years was all that it should be. Who acts: young man, man. 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 6

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The young man promised to do his best, and his conduct during three years was all that it should be.

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**Who acts:** young man, man · **What happens:** promise, do, conduct · **To what, where:** conduct, best

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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 (young man, man), 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:pg7277:8:6
# text = The young man promised to do his best, and his conduct during three years was all that it should be.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	conduct	conduct	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
13	during	during	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	appos	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | the young man | man's conduct during three years |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the young man *not said here* | man's best |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Eventuality |
| 3 | **conduct** |  | man |  |  |  | during three years |  | nom conduct «act transitive»: poss=agent during=obl |

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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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