---
title: ‘Lord,’ said the priest, ‘sooner than see thee touch this reptile, I… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Lord,’ said the priest, ‘sooner than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom.’ Who acts: Lord, thee, I. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, 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/pg3454/35/109/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 109

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‘Lord,’ said the priest, ‘sooner than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom.’

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**Who acts:** Lord, thee, I · **What happens:** say, see, touch, purchase · **To what, where:** priest, thee, reptile, freedom · **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 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lord, thee, I), 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:pg3454:35:109
# text = ‘Lord,’ said the priest, ‘sooner than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Lord	Lord	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
11	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
13	thee	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	12	obj	_	_
14	touch	touch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	reptile	reptile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	purchase	purchase	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
21	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	freedom	freedom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Lord | the priest |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent priest=Topic |
| 2 | **see** | infinitive | Lord *not said here* | thee |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **touch** | infinitive | thee *not said here* | this reptile |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme reptile=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **purchase** | would | I | reptile's freedom |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent freedom=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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