---
title: The eldest was but ten years old, and the youngest only seven. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The eldest was but ten years old, and the youngest only seven. Who acts: eldest. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 2

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The eldest was but ten years old, and the youngest only seven.

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**Who acts:** eldest · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eldest), 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:pg503:33:2
# text = The eldest was but ten years old, and the youngest only seven.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	7	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
6	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	7	appos	_	_
12	only	only	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the eldest |  |  |  | year | old *property* | tree rules |

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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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