---
title: 'If I am to die, I would rather you should kill me. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'If I am to die, I would rather you should kill me. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/10/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Orange Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/) / [Opening, part 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/10/) / 1

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 10, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
'If I am to die, I would rather you should kill me.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** die, kill · **To what, where:** me

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3027:10:1
# text = 'If I am to die, I would rather you should kill me.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
10	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
14	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **die** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **kill** | should | I | me |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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: [Opening, part 9, 112](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/9/112/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/10/2/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/10/)