---
title: The farmer really thought he should have died with fright, and so pe… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The farmer really thought he should have died with fright, and so perhaps he would had not curiosity kept him alive. Who acts: farmer, curiosity. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/22/123/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 8, sentence 123

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The farmer really thought he should have died with fright, and so perhaps he would had not curiosity kept him alive.

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**Who acts:** farmer, curiosity · **What happens:** think, die, have, not keep · **To what, where:** farmer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (farmer, curiosity), 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:pg14241:22:123
# text = The farmer really thought he should have died with fright, and so perhaps he would had not curiosity kept him alive.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	farmer	farmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	really	really	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux	_	_
8	died	die	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	fright	fright	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	had	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
19	curiosity	curiosity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the farmer |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **die** | should · perfect | farmer |  |  |  |  | with fright | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **have** | would | farmer |  |  |  |  | perhaps *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **keep** | past | curiosity | farmer |  |  |  | alive *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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