---
title: But the King’s son had been pondering over all these things, and he… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the King’s son had been pondering over all these things, and he said to the widow woman: Who acts: son. 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 175

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But the King’s son had been pondering over all these things, and he said to the widow woman:

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**Who acts:** son · **What happens:** ponder, say · **To what, where:** things, widow woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (son), 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:pg540:14:175
# text = But the King’s son had been pondering over all these things, and he said to the widow woman:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	aux	_	_
8	pondering	ponder	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
9	over	over	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
11	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ponder** | past · perfect · progressive | the King's son |  |  | all things |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | son |  | the widow woman |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to woman=Recipient |

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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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