---
title: WE should never have wanted to know what was in the soup-tureen!’ — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: WE should never have wanted to know what was in the soup-tureen!’ Who acts: WE. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 101

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WE should never have wanted to know what was in the soup-tureen!’

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**Who acts:** WE · **What happens:** not want, know, be · **To what, where:** soup tureen · **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 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (WE), 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:pg3454:7:101
# text = WE should never have wanted to know what was in the soup-tureen!’
1	WE	weight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	wanted	want	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	soup	soup	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	tureen	tureen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **want** | should · perfect | WE |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **know** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | WE *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  | the soup tureen |  |  | tree rules |

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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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