---
title: When she was ready nobody could have been prettier, but she still co… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When she was ready nobody could have been prettier, but she still could not help looking sad. Who acts: nurse, nobody. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Graciosa and Percinet, part 1, sentence 49

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When she was ready nobody could have been prettier, but she still could not help looking sad.

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**Who acts:** nurse, nobody · **What happens:** be, not help, look

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nurse, nobody), 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:pg540:23:49
# text = When she was ready nobody could have been prettier, but she still could not help looking sad.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	9	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
7	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux	_	_
8	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	cop	_	_
9	prettier	pretty	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	still	still	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	parataxis	_	_
17	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	xcomp	_	_
18	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | nurse |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | could · perfect | nobody |  |  |  |  | pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **help** | could | nurse |  |  |  | still |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **look** *not said to happen* | gerund | nurse *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sad *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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