---
title: But the witch kindled a fire on the hearth, threw a potful of barley… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the witch kindled a fire on the hearth, threw a potful of barleycorns among the cinders, and said to the girl: Who acts: witch. 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 31

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But the witch kindled a fire on the hearth, threw a potful of barleycorns among the cinders, and said to the girl:

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**Who acts:** witch · **What happens:** kindle, throw, say · **To what, where:** fire, hearth, potful, cinders, girl · **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 (witch), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:14:31
# text = But the witch kindled a fire on the hearth, threw a potful of barleycorns among the cinders, and said to the girl:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	kindled	kindle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	hearth	hearth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	potful	potful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	barleycorns	barleycorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
16	among	among	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	cinders	cinder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kindle** | past | the witch | a fire |  | the hearth |  |  | vn engender-27.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition fire=Patient |
| 2 | **throw** | past |  | a potful of barleycorns |  | the cinders |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent potful=Theme among cinder=Destination |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the witch *not said here* |  | the girl |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to girl=Recipient |

<!-- .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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