---
title: ‘They could not increase what is perfect already, fair Princess, but… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘They could not increase what is perfect already, fair Princess, but still they might add something.’ Who acts: crowns. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 276

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‘They could not increase what is perfect already, fair Princess, but still they might add something.’

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**Who acts:** crowns · **What happens:** not increase, be, add · **To what, where:** fair Princess, something

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crowns), 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:pg7277:22:276
# text = ‘They could not increase what is perfect already, fair Princess, but still they might add something.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	increase	increase	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	nsubj	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	perfect	perfect	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	_
9	already	already	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	still	still	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	add	add	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
19	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **increase** | could | crowns *= crown* | fair Princess |  |  |  |  | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | present |  |  |  |  |  | perfect *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **add** *speech: assert* | might | crowns *= crown* | something |  |  | still |  | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Patient |

<!-- .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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