---
title: If it be good, give me the answer; and if it be bad, give me the ans… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If it be good, give me the answer; and if it be bad, give me the answer.’ Who acts: soul, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle, 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/pg641/15/222/)

<!-- 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 Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Story of a Gazelle](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/15/) / 222

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 222

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If it be good, give me the answer; and if it be bad, give me the answer.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** soul, you · **What happens:** be, give · **To what, where:** answer, me

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soul, you), 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:pg641:15:222
# text = If it be good, give me the answer; and if it be bad, give me the answer.’
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
15	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
17	give	give	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | infinitive | soul |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | imperative | you *not said here* | the answer | me |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient answer=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | infinitive | soul |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **give** | infinitive | you *not said here* | the answer | me |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient answer=Theme |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 221](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/15/221/)
- next →: [sentence 223](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/15/223/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of a Gazelle](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/15/)