---
title: A gown or a pair of shoes would have been something like a present f… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A gown or a pair of shoes would have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had said it, and he kept his word. Who acts: gown, Maurice. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 18, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A gown or a pair of shoes would have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had said it, and he kept his word.

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**Who acts:** gown, Maurice · **What happens:** be, say, keep, word · **To what, where:** something, gown, word · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gown, Maurice), 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:pg3454:18:73
# text = A gown or a pair of shoes would have been something like a present for his poor mother; but he had said it, and he kept his word.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	gown	gown	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
3	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	pair	pair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	shoes	shoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux	_	_
10	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	cop	_	_
11	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	0	root	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	present	present	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	parataxis	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
29	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
30	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would · perfect | a gown or a pair of shoes | something |  |  |  | like a present for Maurice's poor mother | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · perfect | Maurice | gown |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent it=Topic |
| 3 | **keep** | past | Maurice | Maurice's word |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Theme |
| 4 | **word** |  | Maurice |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=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.

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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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