---
title: Before he went to bed, the eldest made a cake of magic herbs, which… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Before he went to bed, the eldest made a cake of magic herbs, which she gave him to eat. Who acts: prince, eldest, magic herbs. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 79

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Before he went to bed, the eldest made a cake of magic herbs, which she gave him to eat.

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**Who acts:** prince, eldest, magic herbs · **What happens:** go, make, give, eat · **To what, where:** bed, cake, prince

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, eldest, magic herbs), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:26:79
# text = Before he went to bed, the eldest made a cake of magic herbs, which she gave him to eat.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	nsubj	_	_
9	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	herbs	herb	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | prince |  |  | bed |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bed=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **make** | past | the eldest | a cake of magic herbs |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset cake=Product |
| 3 | **give** | past | magic herbs |  | prince |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive | magic herbs *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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