---
title: In the meantime Prince Peerless had discovered the Princess’s absenc… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In the meantime Prince Peerless had discovered the Princess’s absence, and was lamenting over it by the river’s brim, when he suddenly became aware of the presence of a little old woman. Who acts: Prince, Princess. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 3, with it
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/36/15/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Golden Branch, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/36/) / 15

# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 3, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In the meantime Prince Peerless had discovered the Princess’s absence, and was lamenting over it by the river’s brim, when he suddenly became aware of the presence of a little old woman.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Prince, Princess · **What happens:** discover, lament, become, absent · **To what, where:** Prince, meantime, better

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Prince, Princess), 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:pg540:36:15
# text = In the meantime Prince Peerless had discovered the Princess’s absence, and was lamenting over it by the river’s brim, when he suddenly became aware of the presence of a little old woman.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	meantime	meantime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	Peerless	Peerless	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	flat	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	discovered	discover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	absence	absence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	lamenting	lament	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
16	over	over	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	_
22	brim	brim	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	27	advmod	_	_
25	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
28	aware	aware	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	xcomp	_	_
29	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	presence	presence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
32	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
34	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
35	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **discover** | past · perfect · passive |  | Prince |  | the meantime |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **lament** | past · progressive |  |  |  | better *= good* |  | by the river's brim | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **become** | past | Prince |  |  |  |  | aware, suddenly *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **absent** |  | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | nom absence «state transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/36/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/36/16/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Branch, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/36/)