---
title: ‘Sire,’ they answered, ‘if she were as pretty that would do very wel… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Sire,’ they answered, ‘if she were as pretty that would do very well.’ Who acts: brothers, daughter. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 172

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‘Sire,’ they answered, ‘if she were as pretty that would do very well.’

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**Who acts:** brothers, daughter · **What happens:** answer, be, do

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, daughter), 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:pg540:11:172
# text = ‘Sire,’ they answered, ‘if she were as pretty that would do very well.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sire	sire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	as	as	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | daughter |  |  |  |  | pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | would | daughter *not said here* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=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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