---
title: ‘As white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony, this time… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘As white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony, this time the Dwarfs won’t be able to bring you back to life.’ Who acts: time. 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 244

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‘As white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony, this time the Dwarfs won’t be able to bring you back to life.’

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**Who acts:** time · **What happens:** not be, bring back · **To what, where:** you, life

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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 (time), 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:pg540:47:244
# text = ‘As white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony, this time the Dwarfs won’t be able to bring you back to life.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	As	as	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
9	as	as	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	as	as	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	ebony	ebony	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
18	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Dwarfs	Dwarf	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	19	appos	_	_
22	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
24	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	cop	_	_
25	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
28	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	27	obj	_	_
29	back	back	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
30	to	to	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | future | this time |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **bring back** | to-infinitive | this time *not said here* | you |  | life |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent you=Theme to life=Destination |

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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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