---
title: The old couple hardly knew how to contain themselves for joy, and th… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old couple hardly knew how to contain themselves for joy, and thought of nothing else. Who acts: old couple. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, 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/pg5615/16/30/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 30

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The old couple hardly knew how to contain themselves for joy, and thought of nothing else.

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**Who acts:** old couple · **What happens:** know, contain, think · **To what, where:** lips · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old couple), 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:pg5615:16:30
# text = The old couple hardly knew how to contain themselves for joy, and thought of nothing else.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	contain	contain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
9	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	14	obl	_	_
17	else	else	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | the old couple |  |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **contain** | to-infinitive |  | lips *= lip* |  |  |  | for joy | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot themselves=Theme |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the old couple *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of nothing | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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