---
title: The twelve couples embarked in the boats, which crossed back many ti… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The twelve couples embarked in the boats, which crossed back many times in order to carry over the other princes. Who acts: boats. 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 193

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The twelve couples embarked in the boats, which crossed back many times in order to carry over the other princes.

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**Who acts:** boats · **What happens:** embark, cross back, carry · **To what, where:** twelve couples, boats

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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 (boats), 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:pg540:2:193
# text = The twelve couples embarked in the boats, which crossed back many times in order to carry over the other princes.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	couples	couple	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
4	embarked	embark	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	boats	boat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	crossed	cross	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	back	back	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
14	in	in	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	17	mark	_	_
15	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	fixed	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
18	over	over	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	princes	prince	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **embark** | participle |  | the twelve couples *not said here* |  | the boats |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cross back** | past | the boats |  |  |  | time |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **carry** | to-infinitive | the boats *not said here* |  |  |  |  | over the other princes | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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