---
title: In a few seconds a beautiful girl in a white robe stood before him,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In a few seconds a beautiful girl in a white robe stood before him, so fair and sweet and young that no pen could describe her. Who acts: beautiful girl, pen. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 2, sentence 63

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In a few seconds a beautiful girl in a white robe stood before him, so fair and sweet and young that no pen could describe her.

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**Who acts:** beautiful girl, pen · **What happens:** stand, describe · **To what, where:** girl

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, 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 (beautiful girl, pen), 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:pg7277:27:63
# text = In a few seconds a beautiful girl in a white robe stood before him, so fair and sweet and young that no pen could describe her.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	seconds	second	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	robe	robe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
12	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	before	before	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	_
22	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
23	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	24	det	_	_
24	pen	pen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
25	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	describe	describe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	advcl	_	_
27	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | a beautiful girl in a white robe |  |  |  | before Prince; second |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location |
| 2 | **describe** | could | no pen | girl |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent she=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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