---
title: However, he received them graciously, but found it impossible to cho… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: However, he received them graciously, but found it impossible to choose between them. Who acts: prince, hand. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/25/19/)

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 3, sentence 19

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However, he received them graciously, but found it impossible to choose between them.

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**Who acts:** prince, hand · **What happens:** receive, find, choose · **To what, where:** ladies, hand

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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 (prince, hand), 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:pg503:25:19
# text = However, he received them graciously, but found it impossible to choose between them.
1	However	however	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	received	receive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	graciously	graciously	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	xcomp	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	between	between	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **receive** | past | prince | ladies *= lady* |  |  |  | graciously, however *property* | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | prince *not said here* | hand |  |  |  | impossible *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic |
| 3 | **choose** | to-infinitive | hand *not said here* |  |  |  |  | between ladies *= lady* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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