---
title: When he was lost to sight the Queen could do nothing but weep, and w… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When he was lost to sight the Queen could do nothing but weep, and wring her hands, and cry. Who acts: Queen. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Little Good Mouse, sentence 15

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When he was lost to sight the Queen could do nothing but weep, and wring her hands, and cry.

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**Who acts:** Queen · **What happens:** lose, do, cry · **To what, where:** Fie, nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Good Mouse. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Queen), 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:pg540:22:15
# text = When he was lost to sight the Queen could do nothing but weep, and wring her hands, and cry.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	obj	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	weep	weep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	wring	wring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lose** | past · passive |  | Fie |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 2 | **do** | could | the Queen | nothing |  |  |  | wring  Queen's hands *obl* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | infinitive | the Queen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: 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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