---
title: She was their doll, and they were continually inventing new dresses… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She was their doll, and they were continually inventing new dresses for her, and teaching her songs or playing with her. Who acts: Snowflake, children. 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/pg5615/16/32/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 32

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She was their doll, and they were continually inventing new dresses for her, and teaching her songs or playing with her.

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**Who acts:** Snowflake, children · **What happens:** be, invent, teach, play, sing · **To what, where:** doll, new dresses, songs

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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 (Snowflake, children), 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:pg5615:16:32
# text = She was their doll, and they were continually inventing new dresses for her, and teaching her songs or playing with her.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	doll	doll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	continually	continually	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	inventing	invent	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	acl	_	_
11	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	dresses	dress	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	teaching	teach	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	conj	_	_
18	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	conj	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Snowflake | children's doll |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **invent** | past · progressive | children *= child* | new dresses |  |  |  | for Snowflake; continually *property* | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent dress=Result for she=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **teach** *speech: other* | gerund | children *= child* *not said here* | Snowflake's songs |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent song=Recipient |
| 4 | **play** | gerund | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with Snowflake | vn play-114.2-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with she=Co-Agent |
| 5 | **sing** |  | Snowflake |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=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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