---
title: When the sisters went down she stayed a little behind and said to th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the sisters went down she stayed a little behind and said to the cow-boy: ‘Where does this branch come from?’ Who acts: sisters, Lina, branch. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 114

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When the sisters went down she stayed a little behind and said to the cow-boy: ‘Where does this branch come from?’

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**Who acts:** sisters, Lina, branch · **What happens:** go down, stay, say, come · **To what, where:** little behind · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sisters, Lina, branch), 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:pg540:2:114
# text = When the sisters went down she stayed a little behind and said to the cow-boy: ‘Where does this branch come from?’
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
5	down	down	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	stayed	stay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	behind	behind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
15	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
19	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	24	advmod	_	_
21	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
22	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
23	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
25	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	24	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go down** | past | the sisters |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **stay** | past | Lina | a little behind |  |  |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme behind=Location |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Lina *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the cow boy | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient whether/if S»: agent=Pivot to boy=Experiencer clause=Topic |
| 4 | **come** | present · do-support | this branch |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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