---
title: The woman looked as if she thought this was needless, seeing it was… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The woman looked as if she thought this was needless, seeing it was quite, quite certain they would never come back. Who acts: woman, this, it, clothes. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 45

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The woman looked as if she thought this was needless, seeing it was quite, quite certain they would never come back.

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**Who acts:** woman, this, it, clothes · **What happens:** look, think, be, see, not come back · **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 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, this, it, clothes), 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:pg3454:7:45
# text = The woman looked as if she thought this was needless, seeing it was quite, quite certain they would never come back.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	needless	needless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
15	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	_
23	back	back	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past | the woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | this |  |  |  |  | needless *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **see** | gerund | woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 5 | **is** | past | it |  |  |  |  | certain *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **not** **come back** | would | clothes |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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