---
title: ‘What could possibly happen if I did?’ she said to herself. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What could possibly happen if I did?’ she said to herself. Who acts: I, Graciosa. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3, sentence 23

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‘What could possibly happen if I did?’ she said to herself.

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**Who acts:** I, Graciosa · **What happens:** happen, do, say · **To what, where:** Graciosa · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Graciosa), 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:pg540:25:23
# text = ‘What could possibly happen if I did?’ she said to herself.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	possibly	possibly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | could |  |  |  |  |  | possibly *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Graciosa |  | Graciosa |  |  |  | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient whether/if S»: agent=Pivot to herself=Experiencer clause=Topic |

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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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