---
title: If you had not told me I should never have known that there was any… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If you had not told me I should never have known that there was any wool on the wheel at all. Who acts: I, wool. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg3282/29/69/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 69

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If you had not told me I should never have known that there was any wool on the wheel at all.

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**Who acts:** I, wool · **What happens:** not tell, not know, be · **To what, where:** you, me · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, wool), 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:pg3282:29:69
# text = If you had not told me I should never have known that there was any wool on the wheel at all.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
8	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
10	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux	_	_
11	known	know	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	ccomp	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	14	expl	_	_
14	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
15	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	wool	wool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	wheel	wheel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
20	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | past · perfect · passive |  | you | me |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** | should · perfect | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **be** | past | any wool on the wheel at all |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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:** «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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