---
title: The girl knew well how matters really stood, but she pretended to kn… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The girl knew well how matters really stood, but she pretended to know nothing about it, and sat dumb behind the stove. Who acts: girl, matters. 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 60

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The girl knew well how matters really stood, but she pretended to know nothing about it, and sat dumb behind the stove.

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**Who acts:** girl, matters · **What happens:** know, stand, pretend, sit · **To what, where:** nothing, stove

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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 (girl, matters), 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:pg540:14:60
# text = The girl knew well how matters really stood, but she pretended to know nothing about it, and sat dumb behind the stove.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
5	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
6	matters	matter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
7	really	really	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	14	obj	_	_
16	about	about	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
21	dumb	dumb	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
22	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	stove	stove	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | the girl |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **stand** | past | matters |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **pretend** | past | girl |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **know** | to-infinitive | girl *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  | about arm | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 5 | **sit** | past | girl *not said here* |  |  | the stove |  | dumb *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent behind stove=Location |

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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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