---
title: Neither my life nor yours would be worth anything if I went on such… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Neither my life nor yours would be worth anything if I went on such a fool’s errand.’ Who acts: life, I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Magic Ring, sentence 85

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Neither my life nor yours would be worth anything if I went on such a fool’s errand.’

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**Who acts:** life, I · **What happens:** be, go · **To what, where:** fool errand

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (life, I), 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:pg640:33:85
# text = Neither my life nor yours would be worth anything if I went on such a fool’s errand.’
1	Neither	neither	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
2	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
4	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	5	cc	_	_
5	yours	your	PRON	PRP	Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	conj	_	_
6	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
8	worth	worth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	obj	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
14	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	16	det:predet	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	fool	fool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	errand	errand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would | my life |  |  |  |  | neither, worth *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **go** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I |  |  | fool errand |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on errand=Location |

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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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