---
title: When it came to this the Princess could not help being amused, for,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When it came to this the Princess could not help being amused, for, though she had no heart, she was not without humour. Who acts: name, Princess. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, part 3, 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/pg7277/16/28/)

<!-- 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/) / [Heart of Ice, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/16/) / 28

# The Green Fairy Book, Heart of Ice, part 3, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When it came to this the Princess could not help being amused, for, though she had no heart, she was not without humour.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** name, Princess · **What happens:** come, not help, be, have, not be · **To what, where:** this, heart

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name, Princess), 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:pg7277:16:28
# text = When it came to this the Princess could not help being amused, for, though she had no heart, she was not without humour.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
11	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	cop	_	_
12	amused	amused	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
19	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	20	det	_	_
20	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
25	without	without	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	humour	humour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | name |  |  | this |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to this=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **not** **help** | could | the Princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | amused *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | past | Princess | no heart |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent heart=Patient |
| 5 | **not** **is** | past | Princess |  |  |  |  | without humour | tree rules |

<!-- .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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/16/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/16/29/)
- ↑ back to [Heart of Ice, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/16/)