---
title: Their hopes faded as they gazed, but their mothers whispered togethe… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Their hopes faded as they gazed, but their mothers whispered together, saying, ‘Surely this is our lost princess!’ Who acts: hopes, mothers, this, maidens. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/12/124/)

<!-- 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 Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Child Who Came From an Egg](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/12/) / 124

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Child Who Came From an Egg, sentence 124

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Their hopes faded as they gazed, but their mothers whispered together, saying, ‘Surely this is our lost princess!’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** hopes, mothers, this, maidens · **What happens:** fade, gaze, whisper, say, lose, be · **To what, where:** lost princess · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hopes, mothers, this, maidens), 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:pg641:12:124
# text = Their hopes faded as they gazed, but their mothers whispered together, saying, ‘Surely this is our lost princess!’
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	hopes	hope	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	faded	fade	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	gazed	gaze	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	mothers	mother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	together	together	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
16	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	Surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
18	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	nsubj	_	_
19	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	amod	_	_
22	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fade** | past | maidens's hopes |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **gaze** | past | hopes *= hope* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | maidens's mothers |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | maidens's mothers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **lose** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **is a** | present | this | our lost princess |  |  |  | surely *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **hope** |  | maidens *= maiden* |  |  |  |  |  | nom hope «feeling intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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 123](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/12/123/)
- next →: [sentence 125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/12/125/)
- ↑ back to [The Child Who Came From an Egg](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/12/)