---
title: All these months the king and queen had been telling each other how… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: All these months the king and queen had been telling each other how good and merciful they had been not to take her brother’s advice and to put her to death. Who acts: king, hearts. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the p
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/21/119/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 119

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All these months the king and queen had been telling each other how good and merciful they had been not to take her brother’s advice and to put her to death.

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**Who acts:** king, hearts · **What happens:** tell, have, not be, put · **To what, where:** each, queen · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, hearts), 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:pg3454:21:119
# text = All these months the king and queen had been telling each other how good and merciful they had been not to take her brother’s advice and to put her to death.
1	All	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	3	det:predet	_	_
2	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	aux	_	_
10	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
11	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	10	obj	_	_
12	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	fixed	_	_
13	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
14	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	ccomp	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	merciful	merciful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
19	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	22	cop	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’s	's	PART	POS	_	24	case	_	_
26	advice	advice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	conj	_	_
30	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	_
31	to	to	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · perfect · progressive | the king and queen | each |  |  | month |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent each=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** | past | hearts *= heart* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **is** | participle | hearts *= heart* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | take *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **put** | to-infinitive | hearts *= heart* *not said here* |  | queen |  |  | to death | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent she=Goal |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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