---
title: They had hardly begun to get the Princess ready when a dwarf arrived… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They had hardly begun to get the Princess ready when a dwarf arrived, mounted upon an elephant. Who acts: streets, dwarf. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess Mayblossom, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/3/63/)

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Princess Mayblossom, part 1, sentence 63

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They had hardly begun to get the Princess ready when a dwarf arrived, mounted upon an elephant.

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**Who acts:** streets, dwarf · **What happens:** begin, get, arrive, mount · **To what, where:** Princess

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess Mayblossom, 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 (streets, dwarf), 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:pg540:3:63
# text = They had hardly begun to get the Princess ready when a dwarf arrived, mounted upon an elephant.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	begun	begin	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	xcomp	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	dwarf	dwarf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	arrived	arrive	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	mounted	mount	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	conj	_	_
16	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past · perfect | streets *= street* |  |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **get** | to-infinitive | streets *= street* *not said here* | the Princess |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer princess=Stimulus |
| 3 | **arrive** | participle | a dwarf |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **mount** | participle | a dwarf *not said here* |  |  |  |  | upon a elephant | vn put-9.1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent upon elephant=Destination |

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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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