---
title: She came to the edge of a marsh, and seeing a herd of reindeer there… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She came to the edge of a marsh, and seeing a herd of reindeer there, she began all at once to sing— Who acts: woman. 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 159

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She came to the edge of a marsh, and seeing a herd of reindeer there, she began all at once to sing—

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**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** come, see, begin, sing · **To what, where:** edge, herd

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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 (woman), 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:pg540:14:159
# text = She came to the edge of a marsh, and seeing a herd of reindeer there, she began all at once to sing—
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	marsh	marsh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	herd	herd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	all	all	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	19	obl	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | woman |  |  | the edge of a marsh |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to edge=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **see** | gerund | woman *not said here* | a herd of reindeer |  | there |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer herd=Stimulus |
| 3 | **begin** | past | woman |  |  |  |  | all *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | woman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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