---
title: Would I were the Queen again; Would that you had never been slain.’ — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Would I were the Queen again; Would that you had never been slain.’ Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The White Duck, sentence 62

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Would I were the Queen again; Would that you had never been slain.’

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** be, not be · **To what, where:** Queen, slain

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you), 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:pg640:29:62
# text = Would I were the Queen again; Would that you had never been slain.’
1	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	again	again	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	Would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	cop	_	_
14	slain	slain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | I | the Queen |  |  | again |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | would · perfect | you | slain |  |  |  |  | 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.

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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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