---
title: The Fairy refused at first with a great show of firmness, but who co… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Fairy refused at first with a great show of firmness, but who could resist the tears and entreaties of anyone so pretty as Placida? Who acts: Fairy. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/36/22/)

<!-- 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 Vivien and the Princess Placida…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/36/) / 22

# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The Fairy refused at first with a great show of firmness, but who could resist the tears and entreaties of anyone so pretty as Placida?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fairy · **What happens:** refuse, resist, show · **To what, where:** tears, firmness

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fairy), 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:pg7277:36:22
# text = The Fairy refused at first with a great show of firmness, but who could resist the tears and entreaties of anyone so pretty as Placida?
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Fairy	Fairy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	refused	refuse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	obl	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	show	show	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	firmness	firmness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	resist	resist	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	entreaties	entreaty	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	20	nmod	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
25	as	as	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	Placida	Placida	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **refuse** | past | the Fairy |  |  |  |  | with a great show of firmness | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **resist** | could |  | the tears and entreaties of anyone |  |  |  | pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **show** |  |  | firmness |  |  |  |  | nom show «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/36/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/36/23/)
- ↑ back to [Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/36/)