---
title: They took it to the court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivab… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They took it to the court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivable way, but its crying never ceased. Who acts: Spit, crying. 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 147

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They took it to the court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivable way, but its crying never ceased.

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**Who acts:** Spit, crying · **What happens:** take, try, pacify, cry, not cease · **To what, where:** care, court, conceivable way

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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 (Spit, crying), 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:pg540:14:147
# text = They took it to the court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivable way, but its crying never ceased.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	pacify	pacify	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
15	conceivable	conceivable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
20	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	csubj:pass	_	_
21	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	ceased	cease	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Spit | care |  | the court |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme to court=Destination |
| 2 | **try** | past | Spit *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **pacify** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Spit *not said here* | care |  | every conceivable way |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus it=Experiencer |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **cease** | participle | crying |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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