---
title: ‘We never went so slowly before,’ said the Princess; ‘what can be th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘We never went so slowly before,’ said the Princess; ‘what can be the reason?’ Who acts: We, Princess. 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 73

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‘We never went so slowly before,’ said the Princess; ‘what can be the reason?’

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**Who acts:** We, Princess · **What happens:** not go, say, be · **To what, where:** reason · **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 (We, 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:pg540:2:73
# text = ‘We never went so slowly before,’ said the Princess; ‘what can be the reason?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	before	before	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	nsubj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go** | past | We |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | can |  | the reason |  |  |  |  | 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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