---
title: That were the most dreadful thing that could happen to me. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: That were the most dreadful thing that could happen to me. Who acts: That, dreadful thing. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen, sentence 55

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That were the most dreadful thing that could happen to me.

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**Who acts:** That, dreadful thing · **What happens:** be, happen · **To what, where:** dreadful thing, me

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes(4). (4) Andersen. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, dreadful thing), 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:pg640:6:55
# text = That were the most dreadful thing that could happen to me.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | That | the dreadful thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **happen** | could | the dreadful thing |  | me |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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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