---
title: ‘Superbe! charmant!’ said the ladies-in-waiting, for they all chatte… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Superbe! charmant!’ said the ladies-in-waiting, for they all chattered French, each one worse than the other. Who acts: Superbe, ladies. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/24/)

<!-- 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 Swineherd](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/) / 24

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Swineherd, sentence 24

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Superbe! charmant!’ said the ladies-in-waiting, for they all chattered French, each one worse than the other.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Superbe, ladies · **What happens:** say, chatter · **To what, where:** ladies, French · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Swineherd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Superbe, ladies), 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:pg640:43:24
# text = ‘Superbe! charmant!’ said the ladies-in-waiting, for they all chattered French, each one worse than the other.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Superbe	Superbe	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	charmant	charmant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	ladies	lady	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	waiting	waiting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	18	advmod	_	_
18	chattered	chatter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
19	French	French	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	22	det	_	_
22	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	appos	_	_
23	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	22	amod	_	_
24	than	than	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Superbe | the ladies and waiting |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent lady=Topic |
| 2 | **chatter** | past | ladies *= lady* | French |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent french=Theme |

<!-- .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 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/23/)
- next →: [sentence 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/25/)
- ↑ back to [The Swineherd](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/43/)