---
title: At last, in despair, he sent for his three sons, and said to the two… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last, in despair, he sent for his three sons, and said to the two eldest, ‘Get yourselves ready for a journey. Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 3

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At last, in despair, he sent for his three sons, and said to the two eldest, ‘Get yourselves ready for a journey.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** send, say, get · **To what, where:** last despair, yourselves · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg7277:52:3
# text = At last, in despair, he sent for his three sons, and said to the two eldest, ‘Get yourselves ready for a journey.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	ccomp	_	_
19	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
23	yourselves	yourselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	22	obj	_	_
24	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	xcomp	_	_
25	for	for	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	journey	journey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **send** | past | king |  |  | last despair |  | for king's three sons | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **get** | infinitive | king *not said here* | yourselves |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer yourselves=Stimulus |

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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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