---
title: Certainly beauty is short-lived, and this funny little face and a gr… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Certainly beauty is short-lived, and this funny little face and a green crape dress are a comical end to it. Who acts: this, funny little face. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 3, sentence 12

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Certainly beauty is short-lived, and this funny little face and a green crape dress are a comical end to it.

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**Who acts:** this, funny little face · **What happens:** live, face, be · **To what, where:** beauty, comical end, end

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (this, funny little face), 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:pg540:36:12
# text = Certainly beauty is short-lived, and this funny little face and a green crape dress are a comical end to it.
1	Certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
2	beauty	beauty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
4	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	lived	live	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	nsubj	_	_
10	funny	funny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
15	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
16	crape	crape	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	dress	dress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
18	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	comical	comical	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	parataxis	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | present · passive |  | beauty |  |  |  | certainly *property* | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: subject=Location |
| 2 | **face** |  | this |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present | funny little face and a green crape dress | a comical end | end |  |  |  | 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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