---
title: But the maiden’s hand had hardly touched the dress when the palace s… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the maiden’s hand had hardly touched the dress when the palace suddenly awoke from its sleep, and the Prince was seized and bound. Who acts: palace. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 3, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the maiden’s hand had hardly touched the dress when the palace suddenly awoke from its sleep, and the Prince was seized and bound.

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**Who acts:** palace · **What happens:** touch, awake, seize, bind, sleep · **To what, where:** hand, sleep, Prince

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (palace), 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:pg640:12:1
# text = But the maiden’s hand had hardly touched the dress when the palace suddenly awoke from its sleep, and the Prince was seized and bound.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	touched	touch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dress	dress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	awoke	awake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux:pass	_	_
24	seized	seize	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	parataxis	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	bound	bind	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past · perfect · passive |  | the maiden's hand |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer dress=Result |
| 2 | **awake** | past | the palace |  |  | palace's sleep |  | suddenly *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **seize** | past · passive |  | the Prince |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 4 | **bind** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **sleep** |  | palace |  |  |  |  |  | nom sleep «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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