---
title: But she sat as straight as a tree, and did not move or bend the leas… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But she sat as straight as a tree, and did not move or bend the least bit. Who acts: wife. 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.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 172

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But she sat as straight as a tree, and did not move or bend the least bit.

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** sit, not move, bend · **To what, where:** least bit

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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 (wife), 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:pg7277:54:172
# text = But she sat as straight as a tree, and did not move or bend the least bit.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	straight	straight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
6	as	as	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	move	move	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
14	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	bend	bend	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	18	amod	_	_
18	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | wife |  |  |  |  | straight *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **move** | past · do-support |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **bend** | infinitive |  | the least bit |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «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.

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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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