---
title: Graciosa set to work at once, but before she had taken out a dozen f… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Graciosa set to work at once, but before she had taken out a dozen feathers she found that it was perfectly impossible to know one from another. 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 
---

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

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Graciosa set to work at once, but before she had taken out a dozen feathers she found that it was perfectly impossible to know one from another.

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**Who acts:** Graciosa · **What happens:** set, work, take out, find, be, know · **To what, where:** dozen feathers, one, another · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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:pg540:25:3
# text = Graciosa set to work at once, but before she had taken out a dozen feathers she found that it was perfectly impossible to know one from another.
1	Graciosa	Graciosa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
13	out	out	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	dozen	dozen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	expl	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	ccomp	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	csubj	_	_
26	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	obj	_	_
27	from	from	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set** | past | Graciosa |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **work** | to-infinitive | Graciosa *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at once=Theme |
| 3 | **take out** | past · perfect | Graciosa | dozen feathers |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Theme |
| 4 | **find** | past | Graciosa | dozen feathers *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Topic |
| 5 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | impossible, perfectly *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **know** | to-infinitive |  | one |  | another |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |

<!-- .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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