---
title: ‘Sisters,’ said the eldest Princess, ‘all day long we sew, spin, and… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Sisters,’ said the eldest Princess, ‘all day long we sew, spin, and read. Who acts: Sisters, we. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Pig, sentence 18

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‘Sisters,’ said the eldest Princess, ‘all day long we sew, spin, and read.

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**Who acts:** Sisters, we · **What happens:** say, sew, spin, read · **To what, where:** eldest Princess · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sisters, we), 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:pg540:12:18
# text = ‘Sisters,’ said the eldest Princess, ‘all day long we sew, spin, and read.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	8	amod	_	_
8	Princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	det	_	_
12	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
14	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	sew	sew	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	spin	spin	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Sisters | the eldest Princess |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sew** | present | we |  |  |  | day |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **spin** | present | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **read** | infinitive | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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