---
title: You may imagine how much these had cost; but then nothing could have… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: You may imagine how much these had cost; but then nothing could have been more brilliant, except the beauty of the Princess! Who acts: You, nothing. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/6/25/)

<!-- 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 Yellow Dwarf, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/6/) / 25

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Dwarf, part 2, sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
You may imagine how much these had cost; but then nothing could have been more brilliant, except the beauty of the Princess!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** You, nothing · **What happens:** imagine, cost, be · **To what, where:** much, these

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, nothing), 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:pg503:6:25
# text = You may imagine how much these had cost; but then nothing could have been more brilliant, except the beauty of the Princess!
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	imagine	imagine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
5	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obj	_	_
6	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	cost	cost	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	17	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
14	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
15	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	cop	_	_
16	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	17	advmod	_	_
17	brilliant	brilliant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	except	except	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **imagine** | may | You | much |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot much=Theme |
| 2 | **cost** | past · perfect · passive |  | these |  |  |  |  | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: subject=Value |
| 3 | **is** | could · perfect | nothing |  |  |  | then | brilliant *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 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/6/24/)
- next →: [sentence 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/6/26/)
- ↑ back to [The Yellow Dwarf, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/6/)