---
title: “She could choose no better husband,” said the king, “and if she con… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “She could choose no better husband,” said the king, “and if she consents I do.” Who acts: queen, king. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 13, 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/pg3282/13/31/)

<!-- 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 Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/13/) / 31

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 31

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“She could choose no better husband,” said the king, “and if she consents I do.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** queen, king · **What happens:** choose, say, consent, do · **To what, where:** better husband · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (queen, king), 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:pg3282:13:31
# text = “She could choose no better husband,” said the king, “and if she consents I do.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
5	no	no	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	amod	_	_
7	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	consents	consent	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** *in a quote* | could | queen | better husband |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent husband=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **consent** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | queen |  |  |  |  |  | vn acquiesce-95.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **do** *in a quote* | present | the king *= king* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/13/30/)
- next →: [sentence 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/13/32/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/13/)