---
title: If there's any virtue in an herb at all, it ought to be in such a st… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If there's any virtue in an herb at all, it ought to be in such a strange one as this." Who acts: virtue. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Connla and the Fairy Maiden, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, Connla and the Fairy Maiden, part 3, sentence 31

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If there's any virtue in an herb at all, it ought to be in such a strange one as this."

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**Who acts:** virtue · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** herb

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Connla and the Fairy Maiden, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (virtue), 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:pg7885:6:31
# text = If there's any virtue in an herb at all, it ought to be in such a strange one as this."
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
4	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
5	virtue	virtue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	herb	herb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	cop	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	20	det:predet	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
21	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | any virtue |  |  | a herb at all; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in herb=Location |
| 2 | **is** | ought |  |  |  |  |  | in such strange one; as this | tree rules |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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