---
title: If she did but turn it over to see where to begin, she broke a thous… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If she did but turn it over to see where to begin, she broke a thousand threads, and not one could she disentangle. Who acts: Princess, one. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Graciosa and Percinet, part 2, sentence 72

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If she did but turn it over to see where to begin, she broke a thousand threads, and not one could she disentangle.

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**Who acts:** Princess, one · **What happens:** turn over, see, begin, break, not disentangle · **To what, where:** door, thousand threads · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Princess, one), 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:pg540:24:72
# text = If she did but turn it over to see where to begin, she broke a thousand threads, and not one could she disentangle.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	over	over	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
10	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	12	advmod	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	begin	begin	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
18	threads	thread	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
22	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	disentangle	disentangle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn over** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · do-support | Princess | door |  |  |  |  | vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive | Princess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **begin** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **break** | past | Princess | a thousand threads |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thread=Patient |
| 5 | **not** **disentangle** | could | one |  |  |  |  |  | vn separate-23.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

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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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