---
title: It was Rapunzel in her loneliness trying to while away the time by l… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was Rapunzel in her loneliness trying to while away the time by letting her sweet voice ring out into the wood. Who acts: tower, loneliness, sweet voice. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, 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/pg540/41/124/)

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 124

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It was Rapunzel in her loneliness trying to while away the time by letting her sweet voice ring out into the wood.

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**Who acts:** tower, loneliness, sweet voice · **What happens:** be, try, while away, let, r out · **To what, where:** Rapunzel, loneliness, sweet voice, wood

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tower, loneliness, sweet voice), 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:pg540:41:124
# text = It was Rapunzel in her loneliness trying to while away the time by letting her sweet voice ring out into the wood.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	Rapunzel	Rapunzel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	loneliness	loneliness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
7	trying	try	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	while	while	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	away	away	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	letting	let	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
18	ring	r	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	xcomp	_	_
19	out	out	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	into	into	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | tower | Rapunzel |  | wife's loneliness |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **try** | gerund | wife's loneliness *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **while away** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | wife's loneliness *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **let** | gerund | wife's loneliness *not said here* | wife's sweet voice |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **r out** | gerund | wife's sweet voice *not said here* |  |  | the wood |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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