---
title: The nurse coveted the pearls, but as she was three hundred years old… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The nurse coveted the pearls, but as she was three hundred years old she did not know how she could catch a deer. Who acts: nurse, girl. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 3, sentence 48

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The nurse coveted the pearls, but as she was three hundred years old she did not know how she could catch a deer.

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**Who acts:** nurse, girl · **What happens:** covet, be, not know, catch · **To what, where:** pearls, deer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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 (nurse, girl), 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:pg3282:3:48
# text = The nurse coveted the pearls, but as she was three hundred years old she did not know how she could catch a deer.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	coveted	covet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	pearls	pearl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
11	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	compound	_	_
12	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	advcl	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
19	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
20	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	deer	deer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **covet** | past | the nurse | the pearls |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot pearl=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | girl |  |  |  | year | old *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | girl |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **catch** | could | girl | a deer |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent deer=Theme |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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