---
title: She was given twelve servants, who each held a silken string which w… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She was given twelve servants, who each held a silken string which was fastened round her leg. Who acts: twelve servants. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale, 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/pg640/48/96/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Nightingale, sentence 96

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She was given twelve servants, who each held a silken string which was fastened round her leg.

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**Who acts:** twelve servants · **What happens:** give, hold, fasten · **To what, where:** coquetry, silken string

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (twelve servants), 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:pg640:48:96
# text = She was given twelve servants, who each held a silken string which was fastened round her leg.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	given	give	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	servants	servant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	appos	_	_
9	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	silken	silken	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	string	string	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	fastened	fasten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	round	round	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	leg	leg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past · passive |  | coquetry |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient servant=Theme |
| 2 | **hold** | past | twelve servants | a silken string |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent string=Theme |
| 3 | **fasten** | past · passive |  | a silken string |  |  |  | round coquetry's leg | vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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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