---
title: She was more frightful than tongue can tell; her hair was red as fir… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She was more frightful than tongue can tell; her hair was red as fire, and she had but one eye, and that not a pretty one! Who acts: Queen, tongue, hair. 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 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She was more frightful than tongue can tell; her hair was red as fire, and she had but one eye, and that not a pretty one!

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**Who acts:** Queen, tongue, hair · **What happens:** be, tell, have · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Queen, tongue, hair), 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:pg540:23:6
# text = She was more frightful than tongue can tell; her hair was red as fire, and she had but one eye, and that not a pretty one!
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
4	frightful	frightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	appos	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nummod	_	_
22	eye	eye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
25	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
26	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Queen |  |  |  |  | frightful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | can | tongue |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | Queen's hair |  |  |  |  | as fire; red *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | past | Queen |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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