---
title: All the emperors and kings were on their knees before her, and were… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: All the emperors and kings were on their knees before her, and were kissing her foot. Who acts: emperors. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, 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/pg7277/54/167/)

<!-- 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 Story of the Fisherman and His Wife](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/54/) / 167

# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 167

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
All the emperors and kings were on their knees before her, and were kissing her foot.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** emperors · **What happens:** be, kiss · **To what, where:** knees, foot

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (emperors), 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:pg7277:54:167
# text = All the emperors and kings were on their knees before her, and were kissing her foot.
1	All	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	3	det:predet	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	emperors	emperor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	kings	king	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
10	before	before	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	kissing	kiss	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
16	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | all emperors and kings |  |  | candles's knees | before wife |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **kiss** | past · progressive | all emperors and kings *not said here* | wife's foot |  |  |  |  | vn marry-36.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foot=Co-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 166](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/54/166/)
- next →: [sentence 168](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/54/168/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/54/)