---
title: Prince Curlicue was delighted; he opened one after another, until at… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Prince Curlicue was delighted; he opened one after another, until at last he came to one tiny drawer which contained only an emerald key. Who acts: Curlicue, prince, one tiny drawer. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragma
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 1, sentence 52

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Prince Curlicue was delighted; he opened one after another, until at last he came to one tiny drawer which contained only an emerald key.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Curlicue, prince, one tiny drawer · **What happens:** be, open, come, contain · **To what, where:** one, last, emerald key

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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 (Curlicue, prince, one tiny drawer), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:34:52
# text = Prince Curlicue was delighted; he opened one after another, until at last he came to one tiny drawer which contained only an emerald key.
1	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod:desc	_	_
2	Curlicue	Curlicue	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	delighted	delighted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
8	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	obj	_	_
9	after	after	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	until	until	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	obl	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
19	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	drawer	drawer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
21	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
22	contained	contain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	acl:relcl	_	_
23	only	only	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
24	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	emerald	emerald	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	key	key	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Curlicue  Prince |  |  |  |  | delighted *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **open** | past | prince | one |  |  | after another |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location one=Theme |
| 3 | **come** | past | prince |  |  | last |  | to one tiny drawer | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to drawer=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **contain** | past | one tiny drawer | a emerald key |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |

<!-- .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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