---
title: Before he started she gave him a ring which would render him invisib… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Before he started she gave him a ring which would render him invisible when he put it on his finger. Who acts: Prince, Fairy, ring. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/11/19/)

<!-- 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 Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [Prince Narcissus and the Princess Pote…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/11/) / 19

# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Before he started she gave him a ring which would render him invisible when he put it on his finger.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Prince, Fairy, ring · **What happens:** start, give, render, put · **To what, where:** ring, Prince, finger

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Prince, Fairy, ring), 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:pg7277:11:19
# text = Before he started she gave him a ring which would render him invisible when he put it on his finger.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	render	render	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	invisible	invisible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start** | past | Prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **give** | past | Fairy | a ring | Prince |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient ring=Theme |
| 3 | **render** | would | a ring | Prince |  |  |  | invisible *property* | vn give-13.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 4 | **put** | past | Prince | ring |  | Prince's finger |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme on finger=Destination |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/11/18/)
- next →: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/11/20/)
- ↑ back to [Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/11/)