---
title: The poor lady, turning about to him, and looking at him with dying e… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor lady, turning about to him, and looking at him with dying eyes, desired him to afford her one little moment to recollect herself. Who acts: poor lady. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Blue Beard, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Blue Beard, sentence 70

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The poor lady, turning about to him, and looking at him with dying eyes, desired him to afford her one little moment to recollect herself.

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**Who acts:** poor lady · **What happens:** turn, look, die, desire, afford, recollect · **To what, where:** beard, lady

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Blue Beard. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor lady), 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:pg503:40:70
# text = The poor lady, turning about to him, and looking at him with dying eyes, desired him to afford her one little moment to recollect herself.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	turning	turn	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	acl	_	_
6	about	about	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	conj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	dying	die	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	amod	_	_
16	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
18	desired	desire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	afford	afford	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
24	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl:unmarked	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	recollect	recollect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	advcl	_	_
28	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | gerund | the poor lady *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about beard | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme about he=Trajectory |
| 2 | **look** | gerund | the poor lady *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at beard; with dying eyes | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=Theme |
| 3 | **die** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **desire** | past | the poor lady | beard |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **afford** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the poor lady *not said here* | lady |  |  | moment |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **recollect** | to-infinitive | the poor lady *not said here* | lady |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent herself=Theme |

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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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