---
title: The King’s son carried my daughter about, but the poor thing fell an… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The King’s son carried my daughter about, but the poor thing fell and broke her arm.’ Who acts: son, poor thing. 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 59

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The King’s son carried my daughter about, but the poor thing fell and broke her arm.’

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**Who acts:** son, poor thing · **What happens:** carry, fall, break · **To what, where:** daughter, arm

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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, poor thing), 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:pg540:14:59
# text = The King’s son carried my daughter about, but the poor thing fell and broke her arm.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	carried	carry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	about	about	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	arm	arm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carry** | past | the King's son | my daughter |  |  |  | about *property* | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Theme |
| 2 | **fall** | past | the poor thing |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **break** | past | the poor thing *not said here* | thing's arm |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer arm=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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