---
title: And when they answered that nobody had ever before seen such lovely… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And when they answered that nobody had ever before seen such lovely princesses he seemed quite annoyed. Who acts: ladies, nobody, prince. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 3, sentence 18

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And when they answered that nobody had ever before seen such lovely princesses he seemed quite annoyed.

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**Who acts:** ladies, nobody, prince · **What happens:** answer, see, seem · **To what, where:** such lovely princesses · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ladies, nobody, 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:pg503:25:18
# text = And when they answered that nobody had ever before seen such lovely princesses he seemed quite annoyed.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
6	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
8	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	9	advmod	_	_
9	before	before	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	_
11	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	lovely	lovely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	princesses	princess	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
16	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	annoyed	annoyed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | ladies *= lady* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | past · perfect | nobody | such lovely princesses |  |  |  | before *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer princess=Stimulus |
| 3 | **seem** | past | prince | such lovely princesses *not said here* |  |  |  | annoyed *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme princess=Attribute |

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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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