---
title: She praised her diligence, but at the same time racked her brain as… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She praised her diligence, but at the same time racked her brain as to what harder task she could set her to do. Who acts: HELENA, harder task. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, 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/pg7277/28/124/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Biter Bit, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/28/) / 124

# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 3, sentence 124

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She praised her diligence, but at the same time racked her brain as to what harder task she could set her to do.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** HELENA, harder task · **What happens:** praise, rack, set, do · **To what, where:** diligence, brain, HELENA

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, 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 (HELENA, harder task), 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:pg7277:28:124
# text = She praised her diligence, but at the same time racked her brain as to what harder task she could set her to do.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	praised	praise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	diligence	diligence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
11	racked	rack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	brain	brain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	16	case	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	fixed	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	obl	_	_
17	harder	hard	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
18	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
19	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	set	set	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl:relcl	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **praise** | past | HELENA | HELENA's diligence |  |  |  |  | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent diligence=Theme |
| 2 | **rack** | past | HELENA *not said here* | HELENA's brain |  |  | time |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brain=Patient |
| 3 | **set** | could | harder task | HELENA |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive | harder task *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 123](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/28/123/)
- next →: [sentence 125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/28/125/)
- ↑ back to [The Biter Bit, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/28/)