---
title: But before he had time to despair the girl uttered some more magic w… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But before he had time to despair the girl uttered some more magic words, and immediately she herself was changed into a pond, and the Prince into a duck swimming on its surface. Who acts: Fairy, duck. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 5, with its dep
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/26/4/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Glass Mountain(16), part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/26/) / 4

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 5, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But before he had time to despair the girl uttered some more magic words, and immediately she herself was changed into a pond, and the Prince into a duck swimming on its surface.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fairy, duck · **What happens:** have, despair, utter, change, swim · **To what, where:** girl, more magic words, pond, surface

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fairy, duck), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:26:4
# text = But before he had time to despair the girl uttered some more magic words, and immediately she herself was changed into a pond, and the Prince into a duck swimming on its surface.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	despair	despair	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	uttered	utter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	14	det	_	_
12	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	14	amod	_	_
13	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	immediately	immediately	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	18	conj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	changed	change	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
22	into	into	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	pond	pond	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
29	into	into	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
32	swimming	swim	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	31	acl	_	_
33	on	on	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	surface	surface	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Fairy |  |  |  | time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **despair** | to-infinitive | Fairy *not said here* | the girl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **utter** *speech: other* | past |  | some more magic words |  |  |  | into a duck; the Prince *obl* | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic |
| 4 | **change** | past · passive |  | girl |  |  |  | into a pond *result*; immediately *property* | vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V NP.patient PP.result»: subject=Patient into pond=Result |
| 5 | **swim** | gerund | a duck *not said here* |  |  | duck's surface |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on surface=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/26/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/26/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Glass Mountain(16), part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/26/)