---
title: That was all very pretty; but the most beautiful thing was a little… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: That was all very pretty; but the most beautiful thing was a little lady, who stood in the open doorway. Who acts: That, beautiful thing, little lady. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 9

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That was all very pretty; but the most beautiful thing was a little lady, who stood in the open doorway.

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**Who acts:** That, beautiful thing, little lady · **What happens:** be, stand · **To what, where:** little lady, open doorway

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, beautiful thing, little lady), 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:pg640:50:9
# text = That was all very pretty; but the most beautiful thing was a little lady, who stood in the open doorway.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	10	advmod	_	_
10	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	doorway	doorway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | That |  |  |  |  | all, pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the beautiful thing | a little lady |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stand** | past | a little lady |  |  | the open doorway |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in doorway=Location |

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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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