---
title: I should certainly be more comfortable if my back was washed.” — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I should certainly be more comfortable if my back was washed.” Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 63

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I should certainly be more comfortable if my back was washed.”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, wash · **To what, where:** back

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12. 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.

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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:pg3282:12:63
# text = I should certainly be more comfortable if my back was washed.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	6	advmod	_	_
6	comfortable	comfortable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	washed	wash	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | should | I |  |  |  |  | certainly, comfortable *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **wash** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · passive |  | my back |  |  |  |  | vn floss-41.2.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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