---
title: ‘What is the use of being clever when it is beauty that men want? — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is the use of being clever when it is beauty that men want? Who acts: use, men. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 32, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/32/102/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 32, sentence 102

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‘What is the use of being clever when it is beauty that men want?

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**Who acts:** use, men · **What happens:** be, want · **To what, where:** use, beauty

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 32. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (use, men), 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:pg3454:32:102
# text = ‘What is the use of being clever when it is beauty that men want?
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	cop	_	_
8	clever	clever	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	nmod	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	obj	_	_
14	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | the use |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | clever *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present | use | beauty |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **want** | present | men | beauty |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot that=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 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.

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