---
title: Ugly and old as the cabinet was outside, nothing could have been mor… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Ugly and old as the cabinet was outside, nothing could have been more rich and beautiful than what met the Prince’s astonished eyes. Who acts: cabinet, nothing. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, 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/pg540/34/50/)

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 1, sentence 50

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Ugly and old as the cabinet was outside, nothing could have been more rich and beautiful than what met the Prince’s astonished eyes.

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**Who acts:** cabinet, nothing · **What happens:** be, meet · **To what, where:** astonished eyes

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, 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 (cabinet, nothing), 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:pg540:34:50
# text = Ugly and old as the cabinet was outside, nothing could have been more rich and beautiful than what met the Prince’s astonished eyes.
1	Ugly	ugly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cabinet	cabinet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	outside	outside	ADV	RB	_	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	15	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	cop	_	_
14	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	15	advmod	_	_
15	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	_
18	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	nsubj	_	_
20	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’s	's	PART	POS	_	22	case	_	_
24	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the cabinet |  |  |  |  | outside *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | could · perfect | nothing |  |  |  |  | rich *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **meet** | past |  | the Prince's astonished eyes |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Co-Agent |

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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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