---
title: The wicked nurse and the boatman, who were by this time quite a long… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The wicked nurse and the boatman, who were by this time quite a long way off, heard Frisk barking, and said to each other: Who acts: wicked nurse, Frisk. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 141

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The wicked nurse and the boatman, who were by this time quite a long way off, heard Frisk barking, and said to each other:

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**Who acts:** wicked nurse, Frisk · **What happens:** be, hear, bark, say · **To what, where:** Frisk, each · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wicked nurse, Frisk), 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:pg540:11:141
# text = The wicked nurse and the boatman, who were by this time quite a long way off, heard Frisk barking, and said to each other:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	wicked	wicked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	boatman	boatman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
13	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	16	det:predet	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
17	off	off	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
19	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	Frisk	frisk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
21	barking	bark	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	24	obl	_	_
27	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the wicked nurse and the boatman and this time |  |  |  | by this time | off *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hear** | past | the wicked nurse and the boatman and this time | Frisk |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer frisk=Stimulus |
| 3 | **bark** | gerund | Frisk *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the wicked nurse and the boatman and this time *not said here* |  | each |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to each=Recipient |

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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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