---
title: Perhaps he might have been wise and happy if he had never had the ch… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Perhaps he might have been wise and happy if he had never had the chance of gratifying his wishes! Who acts: father, chance. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Ring, sentence 126

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Perhaps he might have been wise and happy if he had never had the chance of gratifying his wishes!

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**Who acts:** father, chance · **What happens:** be, not have, gratify, wish · **To what, where:** chance, wishes

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, chance), 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:pg7277:19:126
# text = Perhaps he might have been wise and happy if he had never had the chance of gratifying his wishes!
1	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
6	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	gratifying	gratify	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	wishes	wish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	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 | **is** | might · perfect | father |  |  |  |  | perhaps, wise *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **have** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | father | the chance |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chance=Patient |
| 4 | **gratify** | gerund | the chance *not said here* | father's wishes |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus wish=Experiencer |
| 5 | **wish** |  | father |  |  |  |  |  | nom wish «feeling intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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