---
title: And so it was that the child throve, till not a finer boy was to be… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And so it was that the child throve, till not a finer boy was to be seen anywhere. Who acts: reindeer. 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 174

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And so it was that the child throve, till not a finer boy was to be seen anywhere.

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**Who acts:** reindeer · **What happens:** be, see · **To what, where:** finer boy

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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 (reindeer), 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:pg540:14:174
# text = And so it was that the child throve, till not a finer boy was to be seen anywhere.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	throve	throve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	finer	finer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	advcl	_	_
19	anywhere	anywhere	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | reindeer |  |  |  |  | throve *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | past · passive |  | a finer boy |  |  |  | anywhere *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |

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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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