---
title: Never had they beheld such a beautiful beast, said they, and at last… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Never had they beheld such a beautiful beast, said they, and at last, after much bargaining, he was handed over to three brothers for a good sum of money. Who acts: farmers. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatic
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/12/28/)

<!-- 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 Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/12/) / 28

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Never had they beheld such a beautiful beast, said they, and at last, after much bargaining, he was handed over to three brothers for a good sum of money.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** farmers · **What happens:** not have, behold, say, bargain, hand over, sum · **To what, where:** beautiful beast, ram, three brothers, money · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (farmers), 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:pg3454:12:28
# text = Never had they beheld such a beautiful beast, said they, and at last, after much bargaining, he was handed over to three brothers for a good sum of money.
1	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	beheld	behold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
5	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	8	det:predet	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	beast	beast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	much	much	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	bargaining	bargain	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux:pass	_	_
23	handed	hand	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	conj	_	_
24	over	over	ADP	RP	_	23	compound:prt	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	27	nummod	_	_
27	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	_
28	for	for	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	sum	sum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
32	of	of	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **behold** | past | farmers *= farmer* | such beautiful beast |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer beast=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | farmers *= farmer* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **bargain** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **hand over** | past · passive |  | ram | three brothers |  |  | for a good sum of money | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme to brother=Destination |
| 6 | **sum** |  |  | money |  |  |  |  | nom sum «possession transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/12/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/12/29/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/12/)