---
title: As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it might fetch a high… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it might fetch a higher price. Who acts: cotton, child. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/12/51/)

<!-- 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 Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/12/) / 51

# The Blue Fairy Book, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, sentence 51

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it might fetch a higher price.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cotton, child · **What happens:** be, begin, rub, fetch · **To what, where:** cotton, higher price

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cotton, child), 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:pg503:12:51
# text = As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it might fetch a higher price.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	dirty	dirty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	rub	rub	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	higher	high	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
18	price	price	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | cotton |  |  |  |  | dirty *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | past | child |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **rub** | to-infinitive | child *not said here* | cotton |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 4 | **fetch** | might | cotton | a higher price |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent price=Theme |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 50](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/12/50/)
- next →: [sentence 52](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/12/52/)
- ↑ back to [Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/12/)