---
title: As it was, I had to content myself with buying these sheep, which yo… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As it was, I had to content myself with buying these sheep, which you can get for nothing.’ Who acts: luck, I, sheep. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, 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/pg3454/12/98/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 98

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As it was, I had to content myself with buying these sheep, which you can get for nothing.’

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**Who acts:** luck, I, sheep · **What happens:** be, have, content, buy, get · **To what, where:** myself, sheep

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac 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 (luck, I, sheep), 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:pg3454:12:98
# text = As it was, I had to content myself with buying these sheep, which you can get for nothing.’
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	content	content	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	_
10	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	buying	buy	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
12	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
13	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | luck |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **content** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | myself |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus myself=Experiencer |
| 4 | **buy** | gerund | I *not said here* | this sheep |  |  |  |  | vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sheep=Theme |
| 5 | **get** | can | this sheep |  |  |  |  | for nothing | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent for nothing=Source |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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