---
title: They confessed everything, but took good care not to say which had l… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They confessed everything, but took good care not to say which had led the other two into temptation. Who acts: daughters. 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 56

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They confessed everything, but took good care not to say which had led the other two into temptation.

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**Who acts:** daughters · **What happens:** confess, take, not say, lead · **To what, where:** everything, good care · **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 (daughters), 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:pg540:12:56
# text = They confessed everything, but took good care not to say which had led the other two into temptation.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	confessed	confess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	led	lead	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	xcomp	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	temptation	temptation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **confess** | past | daughters *= daughter* | everything |  |  |  |  | vn confess-37.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent everything=Topic |
| 2 | **take** | past | daughters *= daughter* *not said here* | good care |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent care=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **lead** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn result-27.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Precondition |

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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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