---
title: Brother took sister by the hand and said: ‘Look here; we haven’t had… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Brother took sister by the hand and said: ‘Look here; we haven’t had one single happy hour since our mother died. Who acts: Brother, we, mother. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Brother and Sister, sentence 1

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Brother took sister by the hand and said: ‘Look here; we haven’t had one single happy hour since our mother died.

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**Who acts:** Brother, we, mother · **What happens:** take, say, look, not have, die · **To what, where:** sister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Brother, we, mother), 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:pg540:10:1
# text = Brother took sister by the hand and said: ‘Look here; we haven’t had one single happy hour since our mother died.
1	Brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
12	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
19	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
20	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
22	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
23	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
25	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Brother |  | sister |  |  | by the hand | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument sister=Destination |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Brother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **look** | infinitive |  |  |  | here |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **not** **have** | present · perfect | we |  |  |  | hour |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **die** | past | our mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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