---
title: My nurse and I were almost in despair, as my fifteenth birthday was… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: My nurse and I were almost in despair, as my fifteenth birthday was drawing near, and I had never so much as spoken to a man. Who acts: I, nurse. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg3454/4/30/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
My nurse and I were almost in despair, as my fifteenth birthday was drawing near, and I had never so much as spoken to a man.

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**Who acts:** I, nurse · **What happens:** be, draw, have, speak · **To what, where:** despair, much · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, nurse), 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:pg3454:4:30
# text = My nurse and I were almost in despair, as my fifteenth birthday was drawing near, and I had never so much as spoken to a man.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	fifteenth	fifteenth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	birthday	birthday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	drawing	draw	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
16	near	near	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
21	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
22	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	obj	_	_
24	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
25	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	acl	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | I |  |  | despair |  | almost *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **draw** | past · progressive | My nurse and despair |  |  |  |  | near *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **have** | past | I | much |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent much=Patient |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | participle |  |  |  |  |  | to a man | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to man=Co-Agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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