---
title: Some were fair and some were dark; some had chestnut hair, or curls… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Some were fair and some were dark; some had chestnut hair, or curls darker still, and some had golden locks. Who acts: Some. 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 84

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Some were fair and some were dark; some had chestnut hair, or curls darker still, and some had golden locks.

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**Who acts:** Some · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** chestnut hair, golden locks

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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 (Some), 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:pg540:2:84
# text = Some were fair and some were dark; some had chestnut hair, or curls darker still, and some had golden locks.
1	Some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	nsubj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
11	chestnut	chestnut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	curls	curl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	darker	dark	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	conj	_	_
17	still	still	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	21	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
22	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	locks	lock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Some |  |  |  |  | fair *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | some |  |  |  |  | dark *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | some | chestnut hair |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hair=Patient |
| 4 | **have** | past | some | golden locks |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lock=Patient |

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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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