---
title: ‘Ah well,’ said the Princess, ‘I suppose one can’t have everything,… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ah well,’ said the Princess, ‘I suppose one can’t have everything, and it’s certainly better to be good than pretty.’ Who acts: Princess, I, one, side. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, 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/pg540/35/33/)

<!-- 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 Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Golden Branch, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/35/) / 33

# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 2, sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Ah well,’ said the Princess, ‘I suppose one can’t have everything, and it’s certainly better to be good than pretty.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Princess, I, one, side · **What happens:** say, suppose, not have, be · **To what, where:** everything · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, 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 (Princess, I, one, side), 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:pg540:35:33
# text = ‘Ah well,’ said the Princess, ‘I suppose one can’t have everything, and it’s certainly better to be good than pretty.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	_
3	well	well	INTJ	UH	_	2	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	suppose	suppose	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nsubj	_	_
14	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
17	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	ccomp	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
25	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	cop	_	_
26	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	advcl	_	_
27	than	than	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **suppose** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **have** | can | one | everything |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent everything=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | present | side |  |  |  |  | certainly, good *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **is** | to-infinitive | side *not said here* |  |  |  |  | good *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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/35/32/)
- next →: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/35/34/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Branch, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/35/)