---
title: While she was thus suspended, expecting every moment to be dashed to… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While she was thus suspended, expecting every moment to be dashed to the ground, four fairies happened to pass by. Who acts: four fairies. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18, 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/pg5615/18/38/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18, sentence 38

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While she was thus suspended, expecting every moment to be dashed to the ground, four fairies happened to pass by.

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**Who acts:** four fairies · **What happens:** suspend, expect, dash, happen, pass by · **To what, where:** woman, ground

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (four fairies), 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:pg5615:18:38
# text = While she was thus suspended, expecting every moment to be dashed to the ground, four fairies happened to pass by.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	suspended	suspend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	expecting	expect	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
8	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
9	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	dashed	dash	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
17	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
18	fairies	fairy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
19	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	by	by	ADP	IN	_	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suspend** | past · passive |  | woman |  |  |  | thus *property* | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **expect** | gerund |  |  |  |  | moment |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **dash** | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: to ground=Destination |
| 4 | **happen** | past | four fairies |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **pass by** | to-infinitive | four fairies *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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