---
title: Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she ha… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Who acts: bed, lady, Princess. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Real Princess, with its dependency tree an
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/4/18/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Real Princess, sentence 18

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Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds.

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**Who acts:** bed, lady, Princess · **What happens:** be, feel · **To what, where:** real Princess, three little peas, twenty mattresses

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Real Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bed, lady, Princess), 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:pg1597:4:18
# text = Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	plain	plain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
8	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	cop	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	cop	_	_
18	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
22	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
23	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	peas	pea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	_
25	through	through	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	28	nummod	_	_
28	mattresses	mattress	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
30	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	32	nummod	_	_
31	feather	feather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	compound	_	_
32	beds	bed	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | bed |  |  |  | now | plain *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | must | the lady | a real Princess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past · perfect | Princess |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **feel** | to-infinitive | Princess *not said here* | the three little peas |  | the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent pea=Theme through mattress=Location |

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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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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