---
title: There lay the witch’s daughter then, like a bridge over the river, a… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There lay the witch’s daughter then, like a bridge over the river, and could not stir, though her heart was consumed with grief. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/126/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Wonderful Birch](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/) / 126

# The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 126

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There lay the witch’s daughter then, like a bridge over the river, and could not stir, though her heart was consumed with grief.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** lie, not stir, consume · **To what, where:** daughter, heart

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:14:126
# text = There lay the witch’s daughter then, like a bridge over the river, and could not stir, though her heart was consumed with grief.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’s	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	like	like	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
12	over	over	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	stir	stir	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj:pass	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux:pass	_	_
25	consumed	consume	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	advcl	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past |  | the witch's daughter |  | there | then | like a bridge over the river | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location daughter=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **stir** | could |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **consume** | past · passive |  | daughter's heart |  |  |  | with grief | vn consume-66 «NP V NP»: subject=Asset |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/125/)
- next →: [sentence 127](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/127/)
- ↑ back to [The Wonderful Birch](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/14/)