---
title: If you had told it forty years ago truly you would not long have bee… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If you had told it forty years ago truly you would not long have been lacking the spring-root. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 6

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If you had told it forty years ago truly you would not long have been lacking the spring-root.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** tell, lack · **To what, where:** you, secret, spring root · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 16. 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.

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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:pg2435:16:6
# text = If you had told it forty years ago truly you would not long have been lacking the spring-root.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	forty	forty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
9	truly	truly	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	_
14	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux	_	_
15	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	aux	_	_
16	lacking	lack	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
18	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	root	root	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · perfect · passive |  | you | secret |  |  | ago *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient it=Topic |
| 2 | **lack** | would · perfect · progressive | you | the spring root |  |  |  | long, truly *property* | tree rules |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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