---
title: That any Princess could prefer a cup of poison to himself never for… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: That any Princess could prefer a cup of poison to himself never for an instant occurred to him. Who acts: Princess. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, sentence 166

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That any Princess could prefer a cup of poison to himself never for an instant occurred to him.

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**Who acts:** Princess · **What happens:** prefer, not occur · **To what, where:** cup, Grumedan

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Princess), 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:pg7277:11:166
# text = That any Princess could prefer a cup of poison to himself never for an instant occurred to him.
1	That	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
2	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	3	det	_	_
3	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	prefer	prefer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cup	cup	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	poison	poison	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	5	obl	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	instant	instant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
16	occurred	occur	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prefer** | could | that Princess | a cup of poison | Grumedan |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cup=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **occur** | past | that Princess *not said here* |  | Grumedan |  |  | for a instant | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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