---
title: Indeed, so clever were they that they might have been hunting still… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Indeed, so clever were they that they might have been hunting still if a terrible thing had not happened. Who acts: fishes, terrible thing. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, 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/pg3454/17/70/)

<!-- 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 Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/17/) / 70

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 70

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Indeed, so clever were they that they might have been hunting still if a terrible thing had not happened.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fishes, terrible thing · **What happens:** be, hunt, not happen · **To what, where:** fishes

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fishes, terrible thing), 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:pg3454:17:70
# text = Indeed, so clever were they that they might have been hunting still if a terrible thing had not happened.
1	Indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
7	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
10	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux	_	_
11	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	aux	_	_
12	hunting	hunt	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
13	still	still	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
14	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | fishes *= fish* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hunt** | might · perfect · progressive | fishes *= fish* |  |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **happen** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | a terrible thing |  |  |  | still |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/17/69/)
- next →: [sentence 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/17/71/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/17/)