---
title: They gave him the most exquisite dishes to eat, and the most delicat… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They gave him the most exquisite dishes to eat, and the most delicate wines to drink; and in order to turn his head more completely, compliments and flattery were heaped on him from every side. Who acts: fiddles. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with 
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 181

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They gave him the most exquisite dishes to eat, and the most delicate wines to drink; and in order to turn his head more completely, compliments and flattery were heaped on him from every side.

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**Who acts:** fiddles · **What happens:** give, eat, drink, turn, heap · **To what, where:** exquisite dishes, Michael, head, compliments, side

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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 (fiddles), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg540:138`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:2:181
# text = They gave him the most exquisite dishes to eat, and the most delicate wines to drink; and in order to turn his head more completely, compliments and flattery were heaped on him from every side.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	6	advmod	_	_
6	exquisite	exquisite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	dishes	dish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	14	advmod	_	_
14	delicate	delicate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	wines	wine	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	23	mark	_	_
21	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	fixed	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	33	advcl	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	27	advmod	_	_
27	completely	completely	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
29	compliments	compliment	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	33	nsubj:pass	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	flattery	flattery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	conj	_	_
32	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	aux:pass	_	_
33	heaped	heap	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
34	on	on	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
35	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	obl	_	_
36	from	from	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
37	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	38	det	_	_
38	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	_
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | fiddles *= fiddle* | the exquisite dishes and the delicate wines | Michael |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient dish=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** | to-infinitive | fiddles *= fiddle* *not said here* | the exquisite dishes and the delicate wines *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **drink** | to-infinitive | fiddles *= fiddle* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **turn** | to-infinitive |  | Michael's head |  |  |  | completely *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent head=Theme |
| 5 | **heap** | past · passive |  | compliments and flattery |  | every side |  | on Michael | vn spray-9.7-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme on he=Destination |

<!-- .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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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