---
title: Could the portrait have flattered her? — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Could the portrait have flattered her? A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 23, sentence 53

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Could the portrait have flattered her?

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**What happens:** flatter · **To what, where:** portrait

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23. 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:pg3027:23:53
# text = Could the portrait have flattered her?
1	Could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	portrait	portrait	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	flattered	flatter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **flatter** | could · perfect · passive |  | the portrait |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer she=Result |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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