---
title: She hadn’t the least idea of how to spin straw into gold, and became… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She hadn’t the least idea of how to spin straw into gold, and became at last so miserable that she began to cry. Who acts: daughter. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 197

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She hadn’t the least idea of how to spin straw into gold, and became at last so miserable that she began to cry.

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**Who acts:** daughter · **What happens:** not have, spin, become, begin, cry · **To what, where:** least idea, straw, gold

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (daughter), 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:pg503:13:197
# text = She hadn’t the least idea of how to spin straw into gold, and became at last so miserable that she began to cry.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	amod	_	_
6	idea	idea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	spin	spin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
11	straw	straw	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
12	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** | past | daughter | the least idea |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent idea=Patient |
| 2 | **spin** | to-infinitive | daughter *not said here* | straw |  | gold |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent straw=Theme into gold=Trajectory |
| 3 | **become** | past | daughter *not said here* |  |  |  |  | last, miserable *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **begin** | past | daughter |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **cry** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | daughter *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=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 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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