---
title: Charming had pity upon her, and, though he couldn’t help thinking th… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Charming had pity upon her, and, though he couldn’t help thinking that she would have been very nice for dinner, he picked her up gently and put her back into the water. Who acts: Charming, king. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, with its dependency 
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Charming had pity upon her, and, though he couldn’t help thinking that she would have been very nice for dinner, he picked her up gently and put her back into the water.

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**Who acts:** Charming, king · **What happens:** have, not help, think, be, pick up, put back · **To what, where:** pity, Charming, water · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Charming, king), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg503:2144`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg503:28:48
# text = Charming had pity upon her, and, though he couldn’t help thinking that she would have been very nice for dinner, he picked her up gently and put her back into the water.
1	Charming	Charming	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	pity	pity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	advcl	_	_
14	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	xcomp	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
18	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux	_	_
19	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	ccomp	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
25	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
26	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
27	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	up	up	ADP	RP	_	26	compound:prt	_	_
29	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	conj	_	_
32	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	obj	_	_
33	back	back	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
34	into	into	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Charming | pity |  |  |  | upon princess | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pity=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **help** | could | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* *not said to happen* | gerund | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | would · perfect | Charming |  |  |  |  | for dinner; nice *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **pick up** | past | king | Charming |  |  |  | gently *property* | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Topic |
| 6 | **put back** | past | king *not said here* |  | Charming | the water |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent she=Goal |

<!-- .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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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