---
title: She had hardly spoken when she saw upon the table a delicious little… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She had hardly spoken when she saw upon the table a delicious little roast partridge, and two dishes of preserved fruit. 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 46

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She had hardly spoken when she saw upon the table a delicious little roast partridge, and two dishes of preserved fruit.

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**Who acts:** Queen · **What happens:** speak, see, preserve · **To what, where:** two dishes, delicious little roast partridge · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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:pg540:22:46
# text = She had hardly spoken when she saw upon the table a delicious little roast partridge, and two dishes of preserved fruit.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	spoken	speak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
8	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
12	delicious	delicious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	roast	roast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	partridge	partridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	dishes	dish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	preserved	preserve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	amod	_	_
22	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past · perfect | Queen | two dishes of preserved fruit |  |  |  | hardly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | past | Queen | a delicious little roast partridge |  |  |  | upon the table | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer partridge=Stimulus |
| 3 | **preserve** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V S\_ING»: 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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