---
title: I had rather be the unhappy Princess Cabbage-Stalk all my life than… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I had rather be the unhappy Princess Cabbage-Stalk all my life than inflict the sight of my ugliness on anyone else.’ Who acts: I, life. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 1, sentence 28

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I had rather be the unhappy Princess Cabbage-Stalk all my life than inflict the sight of my ugliness on anyone else.’

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**Who acts:** I, life · **What happens:** have, be, inflict, sight · **To what, where:** life, unhappy Princess Cabbage Stalk, sight, anyone, ugliness

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, life), 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:pg540:34:28
# text = I had rather be the unhappy Princess Cabbage-Stalk all my life than inflict the sight of my ugliness on anyone else.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
6	unhappy	unhappy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
7	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
8	Cabbage	cabbage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Stalk	stalk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
11	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	13	det:predet	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
14	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	inflict	inflict	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	ugliness	ugliness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	15	obl	_	_
23	else	else	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | I | my life |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Patient |
| 2 | **is a** | infinitive |  | the unhappy Princess Cabbage Stalk |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **inflict** | infinitive | my life *not said here* | the sight of my ugliness |  | anyone |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **sight** |  |  | my ugliness |  |  |  |  | nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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