---
title: There were hundreds of princesses who would gladly have said ‘Yes,’… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There were hundreds of princesses who would gladly have said ‘Yes,’ but would she say the same? Who acts: hundreds, princesses, name. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/5/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Swineherd](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/) / 5

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Swineherd, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There were hundreds of princesses who would gladly have said ‘Yes,’ but would she say the same?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** hundreds, princesses, name · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** same · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hundreds, princesses, name), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:43:5
# text = There were hundreds of princesses who would gladly have said ‘Yes,’ but would she say the same?
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	princesses	princess	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
8	gladly	gladly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	aux	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	acl:relcl	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	18	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	parataxis	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | hundreds of princesses |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | would · perfect | princesses |  |  |  |  | gladly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | would | name | the same |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent same=Topic |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/6/)
- ↑ back to [The Swineherd](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/)