---
title: In vain did Prince Mirliflor’s father write commanding him to return… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In vain did Prince Mirliflor’s father write commanding him to return, and proposing for him one good match after another. Who acts: father. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Watch, sentence 137

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In vain did Prince Mirliflor’s father write commanding him to return, and proposing for him one good match after another.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** write, command, return, propose · **To what, where:** one good match, vain, father · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father), 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:pg7277:8:137
# text = In vain did Prince Mirliflor’s father write commanding him to return, and proposing for him one good match after another.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	obl	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
4	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:desc	_	_
5	Mirliflor	Mirliflor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	commanding	command	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	xcomp	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	return	return	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
15	proposing	propose	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	csubj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
19	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	match	match	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
21	after	after	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | past · do-support | Mirliflor  Prince's father | one good match after another |  | vain |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **command** | gerund | Mirliflor  Prince's father *not said here* | father |  |  |  |  | vn supervision-95.2.2-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **return** | to-infinitive | Mirliflor  Prince's father *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **propose** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | for Prince | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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