---
title: You had better slip down stairs in the dark, and by beating the vess… — Folk tales from Tibet · tree and pragmatics
description: You had better slip down stairs in the dark, and by beating the vessel against the stone you will soon succeed in freeing yourself.” Who acts: You. A sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman., with its dependency tree an
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/75/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Folk tales from Tibet](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/) / [The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulm…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/) / 75

# Folk tales from Tibet, The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman., sentence 75

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
You had better slip down stairs in the dark, and by beating the vessel against the stone you will soon succeed in freeing yourself.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** You · **What happens:** have down, beat, succeed, free · **To what, where:** better slip, dark, vessel, yourself

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman.. 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.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75000:7:75
# text = You had better slip down stairs in the dark, and by beating the vessel against the stone you will soon succeed in freeing yourself.”
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	amod	_	_
4	slip	slip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	down	down	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
6	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dark	dark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
12	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	beating	beat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	vessel	vessel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	against	against	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	22	advmod	_	_
22	succeed	succeed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
23	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
24	freeing	free	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	advcl	_	_
25	yourself	yourself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have down** | past | You | better slip |  | the dark |  | stairs *obj* | tree rules |
| 2 | **beat** | gerund | you *not said here* | the vessel |  |  |  | against the stone | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent vessel=Instrument against stone=Patient |
| 3 | **succeed** | future | you |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **free** | gerund | you *not said here* | yourself |  |  |  |  | vn free-10.6.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Causer yourself=Source |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Folk tales from Tibet» by William Frederick Travers, Sir O'Connor, Project Gutenberg book 75000 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 74](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/74/)
- next →: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/76/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Foolish Young Mussulman.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75000/7/)