---
title: They may threaten and force as they will, He turns from her, shrinks… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They may threaten and force as they will, He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’ Who acts: eater, monster. 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 162

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They may threaten and force as they will, He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’

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**Who acts:** eater, monster · **What happens:** threaten, force, turn, shrink · **To what, where:** child

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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 (eater, monster), 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:pg540:14:162
# text = They may threaten and force as they will, He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	threaten	threaten	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	force	force	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	turns	turn	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	shrinks	shrink	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
18	still	still	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **threaten** | may | eater |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **force** | infinitive | eater *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **turn** | present | monster |  |  |  |  | from child | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme from she=Trajectory |
| 4 | **shrink** | present | monster *not said here* | child |  |  | still |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent her=Patient |

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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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