---
title: As often as he looked at it he wept and said: “Oh! if I could only r… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As often as he looked at it he wept and said: “Oh! if I could only restore you to life, my most trusty John!” Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Trusty John, sentence 103

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As often as he looked at it he wept and said: “Oh! if I could only restore you to life, my most trusty John!”

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** look, weep, say, restore · **To what, where:** you, life · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Trusty John. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg503:41:103
# text = As often as he looked at it he wept and said: “Oh! if I could only restore you to life, my most trusty John!”
1	As	as	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	often	often	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	20	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	only	only	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	restore	restore	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
26	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	27	advmod	_	_
27	trusty	trusty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past | king |  |  |  |  | at fidelity; often *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme |
| 2 | **weep** | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **restore** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | could | king | you | life |  |  |  | vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Theme to life=Recipient |

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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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