---
title: “I should prefer to follow; if not I shall go no further. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I should prefer to follow; if not I shall go no further. Who acts: monkey. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4, 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/pg3282/37/35/)

<!-- 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/) / [Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted,…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/37/) / 35

# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I should prefer to follow; if not I shall go no further.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** monkey · **What happens:** prefer, follow, not go

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (monkey), 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:pg3282:37:35
# text = “I should prefer to follow; if not I shall go no further.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	prefer	prefer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	follow	follow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
13	no	no	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	further	far	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prefer** *in a quote* | should | the monkey *= monkey* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **follow** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the monkey *= monkey* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **go** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | shall | the monkey *= monkey* |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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 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 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/37/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/37/36/)
- ↑ back to [Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/37/)