---
title: But day by day the poor maiden grew more and more sad, till at last… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But day by day the poor maiden grew more and more sad, till at last her mistress begged her to say what was the matter. Who acts: poor maiden, last mistress. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 25, 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/pg5615/25/20/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 20

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But day by day the poor maiden grew more and more sad, till at last her mistress begged her to say what was the matter.

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**Who acts:** poor maiden, last mistress · **What happens:** grow, beg, say, be · **To what, where:** girl, matter · **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 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor maiden, last mistress), 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:pg5615:25:20
# text = But day by day the poor maiden grew more and more sad, till at last her mistress begged her to say what was the matter.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	by	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	8	advmod	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	12	advmod	_	_
12	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	mistress	mistress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
20	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
23	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	26	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | the poor maiden |  |  |  | day |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | girl's last mistress |  | girl |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | girl's last mistress *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past |  | the matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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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