---
title: The woman neither spat, nor did she run between her legs, but yet th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The woman neither spat, nor did she run between her legs, but yet the witch changed her into a sheep. Who acts: woman spat, 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 5

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The woman neither spat, nor did she run between her legs, but yet the witch changed her into a sheep.

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**Who acts:** woman spat, witch · **What happens:** run, change · **To what, where:** legs, spat

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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 spat, witch), 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:pg540:14:5
# text = The woman neither spat, nor did she run between her legs, but yet the witch changed her into a sheep.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
3	neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	spat	spat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	9	cc	_	_
7	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	between	between	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	changed	change	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
19	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	into	into	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | past · do-support | neither woman spat |  |  | spat's legs |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme between leg=Trajectory |
| 2 | **change** | past | the witch | spat |  |  | yet | into a sheep *result* | vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V NP.patient PP.result»: agent=Agent she=Patient into sheep=Result |

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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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