---
title: The girls came up just at the right moment, held him firm, and did a… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The girls came up just at the right moment, held him firm, and did all they could to disentangle his beard from the line; but in vain, beard and line were in a hopeless muddle. Who acts: girls, vain beard. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Snow-white and Rose-red, with its dependen
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Snow-white and Rose-red, sentence 65

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The girls came up just at the right moment, held him firm, and did all they could to disentangle his beard from the line; but in vain, beard and line were in a hopeless muddle.

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**Who acts:** girls, vain beard · **What happens:** come up, hold, do, disentangle, be · **To what, where:** fish, beard, hopeless muddle

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Snow-white and Rose-red. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girls, vain beard), 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:pg503:36:65
# text = The girls came up just at the right moment, held him firm, and did all they could to disentangle his beard from the line; but in vain, beard and line were in a hopeless muddle.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	just	just	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	right	right	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	firm	firm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
17	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	advmod	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	disentangle	disentangle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	from	from	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
28	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
29	in	in	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
32	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	39	nsubj	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
34	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	conj	_	_
35	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	39	cop	_	_
36	in	in	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
37	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
38	hopeless	hopeless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	39	amod	_	_
39	muddle	muddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come up** | past | the girls |  |  |  | moment |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **hold** | past | the girls *not said here* | fish |  |  |  | firm *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **do** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **disentangle** | could | girls *= girl* | fish's beard |  |  |  | from the line | vn separate-23.1-1 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent beard=Patient from line=Co-Patient |
| 5 | **is** | past | vain beard and line |  |  | a hopeless muddle |  |  | 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.

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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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