---
title: They danced on till the shoes of the princesses were worn into holes. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They danced on till the shoes of the princesses were worn into holes. Who acts: princesses. 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 92

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They danced on till the shoes of the princesses were worn into holes.

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**Who acts:** princesses · **What happens:** dance, wear · **To what, where:** shoes, holes

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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 (princesses), 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:pg540:2:92
# text = They danced on till the shoes of the princesses were worn into holes.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	danced	dance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	till	till	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	shoes	shoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	princesses	princess	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	worn	wear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl:relcl	_	_
12	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	holes	hole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dance** | past | princesses *= princess* |  |  | the shoes |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on shoe=Location |
| 2 | **wear** | past · passive |  | the shoes *not said here* |  | holes |  | of the princesses | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: of princess=Source |

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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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