---
title: You’d better go and see if it was he; I should be much distressed if… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: You’d better go and see if it was he; I should be much distressed if it were.” Who acts: You, rogue. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
You’d better go and see if it was he; I should be much distressed if it were.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** You, rogue · **What happens:** go, see, be, distress · **To what, where:** husband, I

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, rogue), 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:pg503:13:33
# text = You’d better go and see if it was he; I should be much distressed if it were.”
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	’d	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
4	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
15	much	much	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	distressed	distress	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | would | You |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | infinitive | You *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | rogue | husband |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **distress** | should · passive |  | I |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 5 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | rogue |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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