---
title: But hardly had the first bite passed her lips than she fell down dea… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But hardly had the first bite passed her lips than she fell down dead on the ground. Who acts: first bite, bite. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Bushy Bride, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Bushy Bride, sentence 242

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But hardly had the first bite passed her lips than she fell down dead on the ground.

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**Who acts:** first bite, bite · **What happens:** have, pass, fall down · **To what, where:** lips, ground

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Bushy Bride. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (first bite, bite), 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:pg540:47:242
# text = But hardly had the first bite passed her lips than she fell down dead on the ground.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	6	amod	_	_
6	bite	bite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
13	down	down	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past |  |  |  |  |  | hardly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pass** | past | the first bite | bite's lips |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme lip=Trajectory |
| 3 | **fall down** | past | bite |  |  | the ground |  | dead *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on ground=Location |

<!-- .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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