---
title: They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed one in gree… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and singing round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their song: Who acts: Fairies, three beautiful young women, this. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/27/70/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Terrible Head](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/27/) / 70

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Terrible Head, sentence 70

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and singing round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their song:

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fairies, three beautiful young women, this · **What happens:** be, dress, dance, sing · **To what, where:** one, green, one song

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Terrible Head. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fairies, three beautiful young women, this), 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:pg503:27:70
# text = They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and singing round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their song:
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
4	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	dressed	dress	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
11	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	obj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	conj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	43	cc	_	_
20	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	43	nummod	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	conj	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	27	conj	_	_
30	round	round	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
31	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	compound	_	_
33	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
34	with	with	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
35	apples	apple	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	nmod	_	_
36	of	of	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
39	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	43	cc	_	_
40	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	43	nsubj	_	_
41	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	43	cop	_	_
42	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	43	nmod:poss	_	_
43	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
44	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Fairies *= fairy* |  |  |  |  | like three beautiful young women and Fairies's one song | tree rules |
| 2 | **dress** | participle | three beautiful young women and Fairies's one song *not said here* | one |  | green |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Patient |
| 3 | **dance** | past · progressive | Fairies *= fairy* |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | Fairies *= fairy* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | round a apple tree with apples of gold | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **is a** | past | this | Fairies's one song |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/27/69/)
- next →: [sentence 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/27/71/)
- ↑ back to [The Terrible Head](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/27/)