---
title: This happened several nights running, and the Princess could not und… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This happened several nights running, and the Princess could not understand it at all. Who acts: This, several nights, Princess. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Pig, sentence 91

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This happened several nights running, and the Princess could not understand it at all.

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**Who acts:** This, several nights, Princess · **What happens:** happen, run, not understand · **To what, where:** courage, all

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, several nights, Princess), 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:pg540:12:91
# text = This happened several nights running, and the Princess could not understand it at all.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	nsubj	_	_
2	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	nights	night	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	running	run	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | This |  |  |  | night |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **run** | gerund | several nights *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **understand** | could | the Princess | courage |  | all |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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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