---
title: Stepping up to the young Queen’s bed, she began to try her magic art… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Stepping up to the young Queen’s bed, she began to try her magic arts upon her, saying: Who acts: witch. 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 142

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Stepping up to the young Queen’s bed, she began to try her magic arts upon her, saying:

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**Who acts:** witch · **What happens:** step up, begin, try, say · **To what, where:** bed, magic arts · **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 (witch), 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:pg540:14:142
# text = Stepping up to the young Queen’s bed, she began to try her magic arts upon her, saying:
1	Stepping	step	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
2	up	up	ADP	RP	_	1	compound:prt	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	Queen	Queen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	arts	art	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
17	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step up** | gerund | witch *not said here* |  |  | the young Queen's bed |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to bed=Destination |
| 2 | **begin** | past | witch |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **try** | to-infinitive | witch *not said here* | witch's magic arts |  |  |  | upon witch | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent art=Eventuality |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | witch *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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