---
title: The Prince sought for her in vain, and at last in despair sat down o… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Prince sought for her in vain, and at last in despair sat down on a big stone and contemplated his sad fate. Who acts: Prince, last. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23), sentence 50

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The Prince sought for her in vain, and at last in despair sat down on a big stone and contemplated his sad fate.

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**Who acts:** Prince, last · **What happens:** seek, sit down, contemplate, fate · **To what, where:** vain, big stone, sad fate

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, last), 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:pg640:34:50
# text = The Prince sought for her in vain, and at last in despair sat down on a big stone and contemplated his sad fate.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sought	seek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	nsubj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
14	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
15	down	down	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	contemplated	contemplate	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
23	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	fate	fate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek** | past | the Prince |  |  | vain |  | for mare | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for she=Theme in vain=Location |
| 2 | **sit down** | past | last |  |  | a big stone |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on stone=Location |
| 3 | **contemplate** | past | last *not said here* | Prince's sad fate |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **fate** |  | Prince |  |  |  |  |  | nom fate «event transitive»: 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 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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