---
title: ‘Good gracious!’ cried she, ‘why cannot you let things be as they are? — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Good gracious!’ cried she, ‘why cannot you let things be as they are? Who acts: you, things. 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 9

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‘Good gracious!’ cried she, ‘why cannot you let things be as they are?

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**Who acts:** you, things · **What happens:** cry, not let, be · **To what, where:** wife, things

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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 (you, things), 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:pg641:13:9
# text = ‘Good gracious!’ cried she, ‘why cannot you let things be as they are?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	gracious	gracious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
15	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	are	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past |  | wife |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **let** | can | you | things |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | infinitive | things *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **does** | present | things *= thing* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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 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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