---
title: ‘Spit, you wretch, on the blade of my knife; bewitch my knife’s blad… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Spit, you wretch, on the blade of my knife; bewitch my knife’s blade for me, and I shall change you into a reindeer of the forest.’ Who acts: you, I. 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 143

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‘Spit, you wretch, on the blade of my knife; bewitch my knife’s blade for me, and I shall change you into a reindeer of the forest.’

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** wretch, bewitch, change · **To what, where:** blade, you, reindeer

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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 (you, I), 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:pg540:14:143
# text = ‘Spit, you wretch, on the blade of my knife; bewitch my knife’s blade for me, and I shall change you into a reindeer of the forest.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Spit	spit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	wretch	wretch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
14	bewitch	bewitch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	change	change	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
26	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	_
27	into	into	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wretch** |  | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **bewitch** | infinitive |  | my knife's blade |  |  |  | for me | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus blade=Experiencer |
| 3 | **change** | shall | I | you |  |  |  | into a reindeer of the forest *result* | vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V NP.patient PP.result»: agent=Agent you=Patient into reindeer=Result |

<!-- .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.

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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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