---
title: Then, in commanding tones, the eldest sister gave him the order they… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then, in commanding tones, the eldest sister gave him the order they had agreed upon. Who acts: eldest sister, sisters. 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 156

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Then, in commanding tones, the eldest sister gave him the order they had agreed upon.

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**Who acts:** eldest sister, sisters · **What happens:** command, give, agree · **To what, where:** order, Gazer, commanding tones · **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 (eldest sister, sisters), 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:pg540:2:156
# text = Then, in commanding tones, the eldest sister gave him the order they had agreed upon.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	commanding	command	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	amod	_	_
5	tones	tone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	9	amod	_	_
9	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	agreed	agree	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **command** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn supervision-95.2.2-1 «NP V NP.predicate»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **give** | past | the eldest sister | the order | Gazer | commanding tones | then |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient order=Theme |
| 3 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past · perfect | sisters *= sister* | the order *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent order=Topic |

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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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