---
title: She was carefully holding the box upon her lap when she suddenly fel… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She was carefully holding the box upon her lap when she suddenly felt the greatest desire to open it. Who acts: Graciosa. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3, sentence 22

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She was carefully holding the box upon her lap when she suddenly felt the greatest desire to open it.

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**Who acts:** Graciosa · **What happens:** hold, feel, open · **To what, where:** box, lap, greatest desire

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Graciosa and Percinet, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Graciosa), 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:pg540:25:22
# text = She was carefully holding the box upon her lap when she suddenly felt the greatest desire to open it.
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	aux	_	_
3	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	lap	lap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	greatest	great	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	16	amod	_	_
16	desire	desire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	open	open	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past · progressive | Graciosa | the box |  | Graciosa's lap |  | carefully *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent box=Theme upon lap=Location |
| 2 | **feel** | past | Graciosa | the greatest desire |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent desire=Theme |
| 3 | **open** | to-infinitive | Graciosa *not said here* | box |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location it=Theme |

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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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