---
title: But when they were ready for the wedding, the youngest bride said to… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when they were ready for the wedding, the youngest bride said to the King: Who acts: workmen, youngest bride. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Norka, sentence 127

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But when they were ready for the wedding, the youngest bride said to the King:

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**Who acts:** workmen, youngest bride · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (workmen, youngest bride), 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:pg540:13:127
# text = But when they were ready for the wedding, the youngest bride said to the King:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	wedding	wedding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	amod	_	_
12	bride	bride	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | workmen *= workman* |  |  |  |  | for the wedding; ready *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the youngest bride |  | the King |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to king=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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