---
title: ‘So, so,’ said the witch to herself; ‘I had better away with my gift… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘So, so,’ said the witch to herself; ‘I had better away with my gift for the infant, then.’ Who acts: I, my. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 134

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‘So, so,’ said the witch to herself; ‘I had better away with my gift for the infant, then.’

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**Who acts:** I, my · **What happens:** say, have, gift · **To what, where:** witch · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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: who acts (I, my), 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:pg540:14:134
# text = ‘So, so,’ said the witch to herself; ‘I had better away with my gift for the infant, then.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	So	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
16	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	17	advmod	_	_
17	away	away	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	gift	gift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	infant	infant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
25	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	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 |  | the witch | witch |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | I |  |  |  | then | for the infant; away *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **gift** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom gift «possession transitive»: poss=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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