---
title: The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very good countryman spake to him thus: Who acts: Prince. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, sentence 50

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The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very good countryman spake to him thus:

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**Who acts:** Prince · **What happens:** be, not know, believe · **To what, where:** stand · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince), 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:pg503:10:50
# text = The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very good countryman spake to him thus:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	stand	stand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
16	very	very	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
18	countryman	countryman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	spake	speak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nmod	_	_
22	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Prince |  |  | a stand and a good countryman spake to ogre |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** | gerund | the Prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **believe** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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