---
title: Terrible as this death would be,’ added the Prince, ‘it would be swe… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Terrible as this death would be,’ added the Prince, ‘it would be sweeter than life if I had lost your love.’ Who acts: death, I, your. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4, sentence 15

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Terrible as this death would be,’ added the Prince, ‘it would be sweeter than life if I had lost your love.’

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**Who acts:** death, I, your · **What happens:** add, be, lose, love · **To what, where:** Prince, love

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (death, I, your), 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:pg640:17:15
# text = Terrible as this death would be,’ added the Prince, ‘it would be sweeter than life if I had lost your love.’
1	Terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	added	add	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	cop	_	_
17	sweeter	sweet	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	conj	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
20	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
24	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **add** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Prince |  |  |  |  | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent prince=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | would | death |  |  |  |  | than life; sweet *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **lose** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | I | your love |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent love=Eventuality |
| 4 | **love** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom love «feeling 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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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