---
title: And if brother had but kept his natural form, really it would have b… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And if brother had but kept his natural form, really it would have been a most delightful kind of life. Who acts: brother, form. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Brother and Sister, sentence 40

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And if brother had but kept his natural form, really it would have been a most delightful kind of life.

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**Who acts:** brother, form · **What happens:** have, keep, be, form · **To what, where:** natural form, delightful kind

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brother, form), 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:pg540:10:40
# text = And if brother had but kept his natural form, really it would have been a most delightful kind of life.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	natural	natural	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	form	form	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
11	really	really	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
14	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux	_	_
15	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	cop	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
17	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	18	advmod	_	_
18	delightful	delightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	kind	kind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | brother |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **keep** | past |  | Brother's natural form |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent form=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | would · perfect | form | a delightful kind |  |  |  | of life | tree rules |
| 4 | **form** |  | Brother |  |  |  |  |  | nom form «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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