---
title: Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the boat, it m… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the boat, it might be twice as dark for all I should care!’ Who acts: little lady, boat, I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 44

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Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the boat, it might be twice as dark for all I should care!’

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**Who acts:** little lady, boat, I · **What happens:** sit, be, care · **To what, where:** boat

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little lady, boat, 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:pg640:50:44
# text = Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the boat, it might be twice as dark for all I should care!’
1	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	21	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	1	advcl	_	_
10	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
17	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	cop	_	_
19	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	21	advmod	_	_
20	as	as	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	obl	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	care	care	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · progressive | the little lady |  |  | the boat |  | beside me | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent beside i=Location |
| 2 | **is** | might | boat |  |  |  |  | for all; dark, twice *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **care** | should | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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