---
title: If I were to tell you, you would become just as wretched as myself. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If I were to tell you, you would become just as wretched as myself. Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 10

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If I were to tell you, you would become just as wretched as myself.

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** tell, become · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you), 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:pg641:13:10
# text = If I were to tell you, you would become just as wretched as myself.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	just	just	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	as	as	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 2 | **become** | would | you |  |  |  |  | wretched *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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