---
title: There a Princess was sitting, who was so beautiful that there was ne… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There a Princess was sitting, who was so beautiful that there was never anyone to equal her. Who acts: Princess, anyone. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Soria Moria Castle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Soria Moria Castle, sentence 61

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There a Princess was sitting, who was so beautiful that there was never anyone to equal her.

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**Who acts:** Princess, anyone · **What happens:** sit, be, equal · **To what, where:** Princess

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Soria Moria Castle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Princess, anyone), 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:pg540:6:61
# text = There a Princess was sitting, who was so beautiful that there was never anyone to equal her.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	13	expl	_	_
13	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
14	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	nsubj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	equal	equal	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | a Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | beautiful *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | past | anyone |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **equal** | to-infinitive | anyone *not said here* | Princess |  |  |  |  | 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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