---
title: So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to w… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to win the Princess’s love. Who acts: King, Princess. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, sentence 2

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So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to win the Princess’s love.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** King, Princess · **What happens:** set out, seek, ask, do, win, love · **To what, where:** fairy, love · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, Princess), 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:pg503:3:2
# text = So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to win the Princess’s love.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	win	win	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set out** | past | the King |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **seek** | to-infinitive | the King *not said here* | a fairy |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fairy=Theme |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** | could | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 5 | **win** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | the Princess's love |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent love=Eventuality |
| 6 | **love** |  | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | nom love «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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