---
title: Four-and-twenty pretty and graceful nymphs advanced toward him, hold… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Four-and-twenty pretty and graceful nymphs advanced toward him, holding garlands of flowers, with which they barred the way. Who acts: graceful nymphs, Nymphs. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3, sentence 65

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Four-and-twenty pretty and graceful nymphs advanced toward him, holding garlands of flowers, with which they barred the way.

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**Who acts:** graceful nymphs, Nymphs · **What happens:** advance, hold, bar · **To what, where:** garlands, way

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Yellow Dwarf, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (graceful nymphs, Nymphs), 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:pg503:7:65
# text = Four-and-twenty pretty and graceful nymphs advanced toward him, holding garlands of flowers, with which they barred the way.
1	Four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	1	conj	_	_
6	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	graceful	graceful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	nymphs	nymph	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	advanced	advance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
15	garlands	garland	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	obl	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	barred	bar	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **advance** | past | graceful nymphs |  |  |  |  | toward King | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme toward he=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **hold** | gerund | graceful nymphs *not said here* | garlands of flowers |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent garland=Theme |
| 3 | **bar** | past | Nymphs *= nymph* | the way |  |  |  |  | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer way=Theme |

<!-- .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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