---
title: ‘Let them be,’ was her mother’s reply; ‘if you need them I shall giv… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Let them be,’ was her mother’s reply; ‘if you need them I shall give you finer ones.’ Who acts: you, slippers, reply, I. 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 98

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‘Let them be,’ was her mother’s reply; ‘if you need them I shall give you finer ones.’

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**Who acts:** you, slippers, reply, I, mother · **What happens:** let, be, need, give, reply · **To what, where:** slippers, finer ones, you

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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 (you, slippers, reply, I), 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:pg540:14:98
# text = ‘Let them be,’ was her mother’s reply; ‘if you need them I shall give you finer ones.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	iobj	_	_
22	finer	fine	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	23	amod	_	_
23	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | imperative | you *not said here* | slippers *= slipper* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | infinitive | slippers *= slipper* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **be** | past | daughter's mother's reply |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **need** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | slippers *= slipper* |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot they=Theme |
| 5 | **give** | shall | I | finer ones | you |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient one=Theme |
| 6 | **reply** |  | daughter's mother |  |  |  |  |  | nom reply «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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