---
title: ‘They would have disappeared completely,’ said the pretended doctor,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘They would have disappeared completely,’ said the pretended doctor, ‘if there did not exist something to counteract the effect. Who acts: horns. 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 307

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‘They would have disappeared completely,’ said the pretended doctor, ‘if there did not exist something to counteract the effect.

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**Who acts:** horns · **What happens:** disappear, say, pretend, not exist, counteract · **To what, where:** pretended doctor, something, effect · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (horns), 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:pg7277:22:307
# text = ‘They would have disappeared completely,’ said the pretended doctor, ‘if there did not exist something to counteract the effect.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	disappeared	disappear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
6	completely	completely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	doctor	doctor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	19	expl	_	_
17	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	exist	exist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
20	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	counteract	counteract	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	acl	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	effect	effect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **disappear** | would · perfect | horns *= horn* |  |  |  |  | completely *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the pretended doctor |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **pretend** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **exist** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · do-support |  | something |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **counteract** | to-infinitive |  | the effect |  |  |  |  | vn remedy-45.7 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent effect=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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