---
title: If she were not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would b… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If she were not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would be proved.’ Who acts: mother. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Six Swans, sentence 75

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If she were not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would be proved.’

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**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** not be, defend, prove · **To what, where:** mother, innocence

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother), 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:pg640:4:75
# text = If she were not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would be proved.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	defend	defend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
9	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	innocence	innocence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	proved	prove	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | mother |  |  |  |  | dumb *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **defend** | could | mother *not said here* | mother |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent herself=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **prove** | would · passive |  | mother's innocence |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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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