---
title: If I cannot prove who committed the crime, hang me in your stead." — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If I cannot prove who committed the crime, hang me in your stead." Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Tale of Ivan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, The Tale of Ivan, sentence 50

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If I cannot prove who committed the crime, hang me in your stead."

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** not prove, commit, hang · **To what, where:** crime, me, stead

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Tale of Ivan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, 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:pg7885:26:50
# text = If I cannot prove who committed the crime, hang me in your stead."
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	prove	prove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	committed	commit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	crime	crime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	hang	hang	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	stead	stead	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **prove** *a condition, not said to happen* | can | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **commit** | past |  | the crime |  |  |  |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent crime=Theme |
| 3 | **hang** | imperative | you *not said here* | me |  | your stead |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent i=Theme in stead=Destination |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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