---
title: When it was over, and they were preparing to go away, the Queen said… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When it was over, and they were preparing to go away, the Queen said to them: Who acts: banquet, fairies, Queen. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 3

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When it was over, and they were preparing to go away, the Queen said to them:

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**Who acts:** banquet, fairies, Queen · **What happens:** be, prepare, go away, say · **To what, where:** fairies · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (banquet, fairies, Queen), 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:pg540:11:3
# text = When it was over, and they were preparing to go away, the Queen said to them:
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	over	over	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	preparing	prepare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	away	away	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | banquet |  |  |  |  | over *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **prepare** | past · progressive | fairies *= fairy* |  |  |  |  |  | vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **go away** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | fairies *= fairy* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Queen |  | fairies *= fairy* |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to they=Recipient |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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