---
title: “It was to preserve you, master, not to ruin you,” answered Morgiana. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “It was to preserve you, master, not to ruin you,” answered Morgiana. Who acts: dagger, Morgiana. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 146

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“It was to preserve you, master, not to ruin you,” answered Morgiana.

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**Who acts:** dagger, Morgiana · **What happens:** be, not ruin, answer · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dagger, Morgiana), 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:pg503:34:146
# text = “It was to preserve you, master, not to ruin you,” answered Morgiana.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	preserve	preserve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	ruin	ruin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
16	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	Morgiana	Morgiana	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | past | dagger |  |  |  |  | preserve *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **ruin** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | dagger *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Patient |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Morgiana |  |  |  |  |  | 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 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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