---
title: ‘My wife is dearer to me than anything else in the world, and it is… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My wife is dearer to me than anything else in the world, and it is not my brother’s fault that I am not dead long ago.’ Who acts: wife, world, I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 126

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‘My wife is dearer to me than anything else in the world, and it is not my brother’s fault that I am not dead long ago.’

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**Who acts:** wife, world, I · **What happens:** be, not be · **To what, where:** me, fault

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, world, I), 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:pg641:41:126
# text = ‘My wife is dearer to me than anything else in the world, and it is not my brother’s fault that I am not dead long ago.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	dearer	dear	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	than	than	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	obl	_	_
10	else	else	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
19	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	fault	fault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
23	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
24	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
25	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
26	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
27	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	advcl	_	_
28	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	29	advmod	_	_
29	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | My wife |  | me |  |  | than anything; dear *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | present | world | my brother's fault |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | ago, dead *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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