---
title: But the Council treated the promise as a trifle, and said that it ma… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: But the Council treated the promise as a trifle, and said that it mattered little about beauty if the Queen were but virtuous and fruitful. Who acts: Council, it. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Towards Her"], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/15/54/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/) / [Towards Her"\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/15/) / 54

# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Towards Her"\], sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the Council treated the promise as a trifle, and said that it mattered little about beauty if the Queen were but virtuous and fruitful.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Council, it · **What happens:** treat, say, matter, be · **To what, where:** promise, little · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Towards Her"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Council, it), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg29021:15:54
# text = But the Council treated the promise as a trifle, and said that it mattered little about beauty if the Queen were but virtuous and fruitful.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Council	Council	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	treated	treat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	promise	promise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	trifle	trifle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	mattered	matter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	obj	_	_
17	about	about	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
22	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	virtuous	virtuous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	fruitful	fruitful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **treat** | past | the Council | the promise |  |  |  | as a trifle | vn characterize-29.2 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent promise=Theme as trifle=Attribute |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Council *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **matter** | past | it | little |  |  |  | about beauty; the Queen *obl* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | virtuous *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/15/53/)
- next →: [sentence 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/15/55/)
- ↑ back to [Towards Her"\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/15/)