---
title: But scarcely had they sat down together before the Master-maid wante… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But scarcely had they sat down together before the Master-maid wanted to jump up again. Who acts: bushels, Master maid. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master-maid, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Master-maid, part 2, sentence 51

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But scarcely had they sat down together before the Master-maid wanted to jump up again.

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**Who acts:** bushels, Master maid · **What happens:** have, sit down, want, jump up

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master-maid, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bushels, Master maid), 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:pg503:18:51
# text = But scarcely had they sat down together before the Master-maid wanted to jump up again.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
6	down	down	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	together	together	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
8	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	Master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	jump	jump	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	up	up	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	again	again	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past |  |  |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit down** | past | bushels *= bushel* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **want** | past | the Master maid |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **jump up** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the Master maid *not said here* |  |  |  | again |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «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 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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