---
title: It took the frog a year and four days to mount the ten thousand step… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It took the frog a year and four days to mount the ten thousand steps that led to the upper world, but that was because she was still under the spell of a wicked fairy. Who acts: thousand steps, frog. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28, with its dependency tree an
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 28, sentence 51

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It took the frog a year and four days to mount the ten thousand steps that led to the upper world, but that was because she was still under the spell of a wicked fairy.

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**Who acts:** thousand steps, frog · **What happens:** take, mount, lead, be · **To what, where:** arm, frog, thousand steps, spell

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thousand steps, frog), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3027:1796`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3027:28:51
# text = It took the frog a year and four days to mount the ten thousand steps that led to the upper world, but that was because she was still under the spell of a wicked fairy.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	expl	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	frog	frog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	iobj	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	mount	mount	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	csubj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	compound	_	_
14	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
17	led	lead	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	upper	upper	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	25	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
26	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	32	mark	_	_
27	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
28	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	32	cop	_	_
29	still	still	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
30	under	under	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	spell	spell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	advcl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
35	wicked	wicked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	36	amod	_	_
36	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past |  | arm | the frog |  | year |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument frog=Destination |
| 2 | **mount** | to-infinitive |  | the thousand steps |  |  |  |  | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent step=Patient |
| 3 | **lead** | past | the thousand steps |  |  |  |  | to the upper world | vn result-27.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Precondition to world=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | past | frog |  |  | the spell | still | of a wicked fairy | tree rules |

<!-- .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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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