---
title: She found him the best partner in the world, but he did not dare to… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She found him the best partner in the world, but he did not dare to speak a single word to her. Who acts: bouquet, Michael. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 173

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She found him the best partner in the world, but he did not dare to speak a single word to her.

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**Who acts:** bouquet, Michael · **What happens:** find, not dare, not speak · **To what, where:** Michael, single word, bouquet · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bouquet, Michael), 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:pg540:2:173
# text = She found him the best partner in the world, but he did not dare to speak a single word to her.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	amod	_	_
6	partner	partner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	dare	dare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | past | bouquet | Michael |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent he=Theme partner=Attribute |
| 2 | **not** **dare** | past · do-support | Michael |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | Michael *not said here* | a single word | bouquet |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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