---
title: It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being abl… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able to deceive her. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Her With a Sauce Robert'"], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Her With a Sauce Robert'"\], sentence 20

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It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able to deceive her.

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**What happens:** be, deceive · **To what, where:** Sauce, Queen

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This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Her With a Sauce Robert'"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg29021:10:20
# text = It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able to deceive her.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
3	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	clerk	clerk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	despaired	despair	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	cop	_	_
14	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	deceive	deceive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past · passive |  | Sauce |  |  | now | despair *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **deceive** | to-infinitive |  | Queen |  |  |  |  | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |

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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:** «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Project Gutenberg book 29021 (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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