---
title: It was a good thing for my grandmother that she was dead already, or… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a good thing for my grandmother that she was dead already, or else he would have killed her!’ Who acts: door, grandmother. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/41/158/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 158

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It was a good thing for my grandmother that she was dead already, or else he would have killed her!’

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**Who acts:** door, grandmother · **What happens:** be, kill · **To what, where:** good thing, grandmother, Klaus

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (door, grandmother), 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:pg640:41:158
# text = It was a good thing for my grandmother that she was dead already, or else he would have killed her!’
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	grandmother	grandmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	acl	_	_
13	already	already	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	else	else	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	aux	_	_
20	killed	kill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	parataxis	_	_
21	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | door | a good thing |  |  |  | for my grandmother | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | grandmother | my grandmother *not said here* |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **kill** | would · perfect · passive |  | Klaus |  |  |  | else *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer she=Result |

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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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