---
title: ‘How delightful,’ thought she to herself, ‘to possess a fairy cow! — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘How delightful,’ thought she to herself, ‘to possess a fairy cow! Who acts: delightful. 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.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 81

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‘How delightful,’ thought she to herself, ‘to possess a fairy cow!

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**Who acts:** delightful · **What happens:** think, possess · **To what, where:** Maie, fairy cow

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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 (delightful), 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:pg3454:23:81
# text = ‘How delightful,’ thought she to herself, ‘to possess a fairy cow!
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
3	delightful	delightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	possess	possess	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | delightful | Maie | Maie |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot she=Theme |
| 2 | **possess** | to-infinitive | delightful *not said here* | a fairy cow |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot cow=Theme |

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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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