---
title: The King was very unwilling to permit it, but at last the lad got le… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The King was very unwilling to permit it, but at last the lad got leave. Who acts: King, last. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princesses of Whiteland, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Princesses of Whiteland, sentence 8

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The King was very unwilling to permit it, but at last the lad got leave.

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**Who acts:** King, last · **What happens:** be, permit, get, leave · **To what, where:** leave

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princesses of Whiteland. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, last), 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:pg540:26:8
# text = The King was very unwilling to permit it, but at last the lad got leave.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	unwilling	unwilling	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	permit	permit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	nsubj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
15	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
16	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the King |  |  |  |  | unwilling *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **permit** | to-infinitive | the King *not said here* | leave |  |  |  |  | vn admit-64.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **get** | past | last |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **leave** | infinitive | last *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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