---
title: ‘Methinks she would soon be a dear cow if we had to feed her on salt… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Methinks she would soon be a dear cow if we had to feed her on salt herring. Who acts: cow, we. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, 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/pg3454/23/43/)

<!-- 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 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/23/) / 43

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Methinks she would soon be a dear cow if we had to feed her on salt herring.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cow, we · **What happens:** be, have, feed · **To what, where:** dear cow, cow, salt herring

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cow, we), 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:pg3454:23:43
# text = ‘Methinks she would soon be a dear cow if we had to feed her on salt herring.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Methinks	methink	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
5	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	feed	feed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	salt	salt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	herring	herring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | cow | a dear cow |  |  |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | we |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **feed** | to-infinitive | we *not said here* |  | cow | salt herring |  |  | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |

<!-- .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 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/23/42/)
- next →: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/23/44/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/23/)