---
title: They were even lovelier than she expected, and when the merchant bes… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were even lovelier than she expected, and when the merchant besought her to come on board, and inspect some that he thought were finer still, her curiosity was too great to refuse, and she went. Who acts: slaves, mistress, merchant, curiosity. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lan
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2, sentence 91

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were even lovelier than she expected, and when the merchant besought her to come on board, and inspect some that he thought were finer still, her curiosity was too great to refuse, and she went.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** slaves, mistress, merchant, curiosity · **What happens:** be, expect, beseech, come, inspect, think · **To what, where:** mistress, board, some · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (slaves, mistress, merchant, curiosity), 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:pg641:39:91
# text = They were even lovelier than she expected, and when the merchant besought her to come on board, and inspect some that he thought were finer still, her curiosity was too great to refuse, and she went.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	even	even	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	lovelier	lovely	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
5	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	expected	expect	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	besought	beseech	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	board	board	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	inspect	inspect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	conj	_	_
22	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	21	obj	_	_
23	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	advcl	_	_
26	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
27	finer	fine	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	25	xcomp	_	_
28	still	still	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
30	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	curiosity	curiosity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nsubj	_	_
32	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
33	too	too	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	_
34	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	ccomp	_	_
35	to	to	PART	TO	_	36	mark	_	_
36	refuse	refuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	34	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	40	punct	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	40	cc	_	_
39	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	40	nsubj	_	_
40	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | slaves *= slave* |  |  |  |  | lovely *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **expect** | past | mistress |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **beseech** | past | the merchant | mistress |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** | to-infinitive | the merchant *not said here* |  |  | board |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on board=Location |
| 5 | **inspect** | infinitive | the merchant *not said here* | some |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent some=Theme |
| 6 | **think** *speech: other* | past | merchant |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **is** | past | merchant *not said here* |  |  |  |  | fine *property* | tree rules |
| 8 | **is** | past | mistress's curiosity |  |  |  | still | great *property* | tree rules |
| 9 | **refuse** | to-infinitive | mistress's curiosity *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 10 | **go** | past | mistress |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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.

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**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.

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