---
title: At last the emperor said to his eldest son, ‘If only I could prevent… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last the emperor said to his eldest son, ‘If only I could prevent those robbers from stealing my fruit, how happy I should be!’ Who acts: last emperor, I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/7/3/)

<!-- 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 Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/7/) / 3

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At last the emperor said to his eldest son, ‘If only I could prevent those robbers from stealing my fruit, how happy I should be!’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** last emperor, I · **What happens:** say, prevent, steal, be · **To what, where:** robbers, fruit · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (last emperor, I), 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:pg641:7:3
# text = At last the emperor said to his eldest son, ‘If only I could prevent those robbers from stealing my fruit, how happy I should be!’
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	amod	_	_
9	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	prevent	prevent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
17	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
20	stealing	steal	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
21	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
25	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	parataxis	_	_
26	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
27	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the last emperor |  |  |  |  | to emperor's eldest son | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Pivot to son=Experiencer clause=Topic |
| 2 | **prevent** | could | I | that robbers |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer robber=Theme |
| 3 | **steal** | gerund | I *not said here* | my fruit |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location fruit=Theme |
| 4 | **be** | should | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/7/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/7/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/7/)