---
title: I desire that the golden ship shall turn to black wood, and the crew… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I desire that the golden ship shall turn to black wood, and the crew to hideous negroes; that St. Nicholas shall leave the helm and that the only cargo shall be black cats.” Who acts: I, golden ship, Nicholas, only cargo. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/164/)

<!-- 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 Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The Bronze Ring](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/) / 164

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 164

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I desire that the golden ship shall turn to black wood, and the crew to hideous negroes; that St. Nicholas shall leave the helm and that the only cargo shall be black cats.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, golden ship, Nicholas, only cargo · **What happens:** desire, turn, leave, be · **To what, where:** crew, black wood, helm

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, golden ship, Nicholas, only cargo), 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:pg503:2:164
# text = I desire that the golden ship shall turn to black wood, and the crew to hideous negroes; that St. Nicholas shall leave the helm and that the only cargo shall be black cats.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	desire	desire	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	crew	crew	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	hideous	hideous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	negroes	negro	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	nsubj	_	_
21	St.	St.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod:desc	_	_
22	Nicholas	Nicholas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	helm	helm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
28	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	34	mark	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	cargo	cargo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nsubj	_	_
32	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	34	aux	_	_
33	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	34	cop	_	_
34	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	cats	cat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **desire** | present | I | the crew to hideous negroes |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **turn** | shall | the golden ship |  |  | black wood |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme to wood=Trajectory |
| 3 | **leave** | shall | Nicholas  St. | the helm |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent helm=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | shall | the only cargo |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 163](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/163/)
- next →: [sentence 165](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/165/)
- ↑ back to [The Bronze Ring](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/2/)