---
title: Now their cruel stepmother was in reality a witch, and she knew perf… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now their cruel stepmother was in reality a witch, and she knew perfectly well that the two children had run away. Who acts: cruel stepmother, stepmother, two children. 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 15

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Now their cruel stepmother was in reality a witch, and she knew perfectly well that the two children had run away.

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**Who acts:** cruel stepmother, stepmother, two children · **What happens:** be, know, run away · **To what, where:** witch · **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 (cruel stepmother, stepmother, two children), 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:pg540:10:15
# text = Now their cruel stepmother was in reality a witch, and she knew perfectly well that the two children had run away.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	_
2	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	reality	reality	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
14	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	run	run	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	_
22	away	away	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Heaven's cruel stepmother | a witch |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | past | stepmother |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **run away** | past · perfect | the two children |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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