---
title: ‘Alas! madam,’ cried the Princess, ‘is it impossible to be at once w… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Alas! madam,’ cried the Princess, ‘is it impossible to be at once wise and beautiful?’ Who acts: madam, ‘. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 2, sentence 27

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‘Alas! madam,’ cried the Princess, ‘is it impossible to be at once wise and beautiful?’

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**Who acts:** madam, ‘ · **What happens:** cry, be · **To what, where:** Princess

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (madam, ‘), 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:pg540:35:27
# text = ‘Alas! madam,’ cried the Princess, ‘is it impossible to be at once wise and beautiful?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	madam	madam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	‘	‘	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	expl	_	_
14	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	19	advmod	_	_
19	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | madam | the Princess |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent princess=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | present | ‘ |  |  |  |  | impossible *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | to-infinitive | ‘ *not said here* |  |  |  |  | once, wise *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | ‘ *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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