---
title: It would have been better if you had left me with my stepmother, tha… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It would have been better if you had left me with my stepmother, than first to have brought me to heaven and then send me back to a worse place.’ Who acts: work, you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 146

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It would have been better if you had left me with my stepmother, than first to have brought me to heaven and then send me back to a worse place.’

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**Who acts:** work, you · **What happens:** be, leave, bring, send back · **To what, where:** me, heaven, worse place

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (work, 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:pg641:2:146
# text = It would have been better if you had left me with my stepmother, than first to have brought me to heaven and then send me back to a worse place.’
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	cop	_	_
5	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	19	obl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
18	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux	_	_
19	brought	bring	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	parataxis	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	heaven	heaven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	25	advmod	_	_
25	send	send	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	conj	_	_
26	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	iobj	_	_
27	back	back	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
28	to	to	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	31	amod	_	_
31	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would · perfect | work |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **leave** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | you |  | me |  |  | with my stepmother | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP-Fulfilling PP.theme»: agent=Agent i=Recipient with stepmother=Theme |
| 3 | **bring** | to-infinitive · perfect |  | me |  | heaven |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent i=Theme to heaven=Destination |
| 4 | **send back** | infinitive |  |  | me | a worse place | then |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent i=Theme to place=Destination |

<!-- .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.

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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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