---
title: But when her mother-in-law saw it was a girl, she wrung her hands an… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when her mother-in-law saw it was a girl, she wrung her hands and wept, saying: Who acts: mother, law. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/15/119/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 119

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But when her mother-in-law saw it was a girl, she wrung her hands and wept, saying:

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**Who acts:** mother, law · **What happens:** see, be, wring, weep, say · **To what, where:** girl, hands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, law), 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:pg3282:15:119
# text = But when her mother-in-law saw it was a girl, she wrung her hands and wept, saying:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
9	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	wrung	wring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | daughter's mother in law |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is a** | past | law | a girl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **wring** | past | mother | daughter's hands |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Patient |
| 4 | **weep** | past | mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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